School Information System

Linguistics: Words in Code

The Economist:

The speakers of tonal and non-tonal languages have genetic differences

FIVE years ago three well-known academics, including Noam Chomsky, wrote that the half-century old “interdisciplinary marriage” between biology and linguistics “has not yet been fully consummated.” That same year other scientists described the molecular evolution of a gene called FOXP2 which, when mutated, seems to cause people severe difficulty with grammar and articulation.

Another genetic condition that could shed light on the biology of linguistics is microcephaly (sometimes rudely called “pin-headedness”). It is linked to six genes, a spanner in the works of any of which leads the human brain to grow to only two-thirds of a pint in adults. That is less than a third of its normal volume. Those genes are alluring objects for studying the evolution of language because brain size has ballooned in people since their line split with that of their closest relatives. Even though birds sing and bees dance, nothing in nature matches a human's richly complicated system of vocal communication. In short, language makes humans unique and genes active in the developing brain make language possible.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 12:01 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

School District Abandons Both Rhyme and Reason in Language Programs

Douglas J. Buege:

As budget cuts extract another ton of flesh from Madison’s public school students, classroom teachers reel from the aftershocks. Keeping a smooth, consistent curriculum takes a lot from an educator, yet as our well-trained teachers meet tough demands, we witness a loss of both rhyme and reason at both the school and the district level. Nowhere do the wounds from budget cuts show more clearly than in foreign language education. If you think Junior should learn a second language, you might consider relocating once you learn the facts.

A child’s chance of learning the language of their choice depends heavily upon where they live within the district. In the fall of 2007, high school students at West, LaFollette, and Memorial will be able to choose from five non-English languages; kids at East get two. The German program, recently axed at East, leaves Spanish and French as the only options, stranding several students like Daniel Schott who’d devoted his time and energy to learning German. Daniel’s choice of German will carry with him through college where his opportunity to earn back credit for high school work diminishes—unless he’s willing to travel to LaFollette daily, an option that will disrupt his daily schedule beyond reason.

Imagine your child taking a novel language, say Italian, as a middle schooler. Students at Spring Harbor and Wright Middle Schools have that option. Unfortunately, the high schools to which Spring Harbor and Wright feed do not offer Italian, creating an academic dead-end for those without the resources to move to the LaFollette area. Even then, the Italian program there may disappear given the recent exodus of the Italian teacher for greener soccer pitches.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 08:31 AM | Comments (2) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Moving California's English Learner's to English Proficiency

Joanne Jacobs [3.7MB PDF]:

Only 9.6 percent of English Learners (ELs) in California public schools were redesignated to Fluent English Proficient status during the 2005-06 school year. According to one state education department study, only one-third of those who start in kindergarten are reclassified by fifth grade. This prompted state Superintendent Jack O’Connell to instruct school districts to reexamine their reclassification policies and procedures.

Reclassification rates vary significantly from one school district to the next. School districts discussed range from Riverside’s Alvord Unified, where 1 percent of ELs were reclassified as proficient last year, to Glendale Unified, where 19.7 percent of ELs were reclassified.

Some school districts set higher bars for reclassification than others, requiring higher scores on state tests, writing or math proficiency and passing grades. However, some districts with high requirements also have high reclassification rates because of effective instruction, close monitoring of students' progress and a higher percentage of ELs from middle-class and Asian families.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 09:08 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Milwaukee Chinese School Starting In Fall

Channel3000.com:

The Milwaukee school district is opening a Chinese school this fall.

It will join at least a dozen Chinese programs in Wisconsin.
About 130 students have signed up so far to attend the Milwaukee Academy of Chinese Language, also part of a growing number of schools offering Chinese language classes nationwide.

It will teach four-year-old kindergarten through fifth grade the Mandarin language, symbols and culture for 30 to 45 minutes a day, along with traditional curriculum in English.

James Sayavong, who started the Milwaukee school, said that he expects nearly 200 students to enroll by fall.

So far, the school's students are mostly from the surrounding neighborhood, which is generally black and low income. He said he wants this type of education to be available for everyone.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 08:44 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Similar English Learner Students, Different Results: Why Do Some Schools Do Better?

Edsource:

How elementary schools focus their time and energies, and what resources they have for doing it, can make a powerful difference in the academic achievement of English Learner students from low-income backgrounds, according to findings from this new analysis of data.
This new extended analysis was based upon extensive survey data from 4,700 K-5 classroom teachers (80% or more at each school) and all principals in 237 California elementary schools from 137 different school districts across the state. These schools were initially randomly selected from 550 schools in California’s 25-35% School Characteristics Index band. All schools from this band have high levels of student poverty and low parent education levels; for this analysis we further narrowed our original sample to eliminate any school that didn’t have enough English Learner students to have an EL Academic Performance Index score.

The research team analyzed the school practices covered by the teacher and principal surveys to see which most highly correlated with California’s new school level English Learner Academic Performance Index. In addition, the team analyzed the same practices against percent proficient on the California Standards Tests to see if the results were similar. Finally, the team ran an additional analysis to see if the results were similar for only schools in our sample with English Learner student populations that were 80% or more Spanish speakers. The results for all three analyses were essentially the same: there are four interrelated broad school practices – backed up by numerous examples of specific actionable practices – that most strongly differentiate the lower from the higher performing elementary schools with regard to English Learner API. These four practices are the same, although in a slightly different order of significance, as the team had found in October 2005 for the school-wide API.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 12:23 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Nonfiction Liberation

In the 1970s, when Ms. Magazine came out, there was a great story about three (heterosexual) couples who got together for dinner: a lawyer, a chemist, a teacher, a lawyer, a manager, and a lawyer, and one of the lawyers looked around the room and said: "This will be great, we're all lawyers!" (the men were lawyers).

In a similar way, I feel that history books just get completely overlooked in schools. People who talk about writing in the schools, talk about fiction, and people who talk about reading (in the schools) talk as if nonfiction just did not exist. It does not seem to find a place in their thoughts. Literature Rules! (good and bad)...

I know that, in the early days of women's liberation (1970s version), men would sometimes catch themselves, and say, "or she," and the like, but it was a real struggle. Now in schools there may be people who mention nonfiction in the same way, but history and other nonfiction have not really moved into the mainstream. There is a glass ceiling for nonfiction so thick, that people standing on it, as a floor, do not even see nonfiction down there waiting its turn.

The Nonfiction Liberation Movement should challenge that Hegemonic monopoly and at least teach educators that to mention writing, without mentioning academic expository writing (term papers), and to talk of reading, without mentioning history, is to be politically incorrect!

Then perhaps the downtrodden brothers and sisters in the History Departments will dare to assert themselves and say, boldly, to the astonishment of their peers, "I am going to assign a complete history book this semester!" and "I am going to assign a serious Extended Research Essay this semester!" A cadre of new Nonfiction Freedom Riders will arise, and our kids will no longer be sent off to college and into the world never having read a complete history book or written one serious nonfiction term paper.

Will Fitzhugh [founder]
Consortium for Varsity Academics? [2007]
The Concord Review [1987]
Ralph Waldo Emerson Prizes [1995]
National Writing Board [1998]
TCR Institute [2002]
730 Boston Post Road, Suite 24
Sudbury, Massachusetts 01776 USA
978-443-0022; 800-331-5007
www.tcr.org; fitzhugh@tcr.org

Posted by Will Fitzhugh at 09:29 PM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Americans Believe Writing Skills Are More Important Than Ever

National Writing Project:

While 98 percent of Americans believe that good writing skills are very important to succeed in today's economy, roughly half believe the quality of students' writing skills has declined over the past 20 years, a report released by the Berkeley, Calif.-based National Writing Project says.

Two-thirds of the people surveyed wanted more resources earmarked for writing instruction, and almost three-fourths thought writing should be taught to students in every subject at every grade level. Seventy-four percent of respondents thought good writing skills were important regardless of what career students pursue. The study surveyed a representative sample of 1,501 adults in the United States.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 06:36 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Advice for students: How to unstuff a sentence

Michael Leddy:

Student-writers often believe that the secret of good writing is a reliance upon bigger and “better” words. Thus the haphazard thesaurus use that I wrote about last month. Another danger for student-writers involves the assumption that good writing is a matter of stuffy, ponderous sentences. Stuffy sentences might be explained by the need to make a required word-count, but I see such sentences even in writing assignments of only modest length. Most often, I think, these sentences originate in the mistaken idea that stuffiness is the mark of serious, mature writing.

A writer can begin to unstuff a sentence by looking closely at each of its elements and asking if it is needed. Here is an extreme example:

To begin, it is important to note that the theme of regret is an important theme in “The Road Not Taken,” which was written by Robert Frost, and that evidence for it can be found throughout the entire poem.

“To begin”: Like “to conclude,” this phrase is an unnecessary, empty transition. If a point is coming early (or late) in an essay, trust that a reader can see that. Removing “To begin” involves no loss of meaning.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 08:43 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

"Cooking the Numbers" - Madison's Reading Program

Joanne Jacobs:

From the Fayetteville, NC Observer:

Superintendent Art Rainwater loves to discuss the Madison Metropolitan School District’s success in eliminating the racial achievement gap.

But he won’t consult with educators from other communities until they are ready to confront the issue head on.

“I’m willing to talk,” Rainwater tells people seeking his advice, “when you are willing to stand up and admit the problem, to say our minority children do not perform as well as our white students.”

Only then will Rainwater reveal the methods Madison used to level the academic playing field for minority students.

This is an odd statement. The racial achievement gap is accepted as an uncomfortable fact everywhere; it is much discussed. No superintendent in the U.S. — except for Rainwater — claims to have eliminated the gap.

Today, Rainwater said, no statistical achievement gap exists between the 25,000 white and minority students in Madison’s schools.

Impressive, but untrue, writes Right Wing Prof, who looked at Madison reading scores across all grades.

I found a graph comparing Madison to five similar districts in Wisconsin, all of which do much better than Madison on fourth-grade reading.

Related Links:

• Diana Jean Schemo's article: Madison's Reading Battle Makes the NYT: In War Over Teaching Reading, a U.S.-Local Clash
• Jason Shephard: Reading Between the Lines: Madison Was Right to Reject Compromised Program
• Mark Seidenberg on Reading First
• Joanne Jacobs on Reading War II
• Third Grade Reading Scores by Ed Blume
• Mark Seidenberg's informal talk on reading education
• "There's something deeply wrong here" and here

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 04:33 AM | Comments (8) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

More on Madison's Reading First Rejection and Reading Recovery

Joanne Jacobs:

Reading War II is still raging as reading experts attack a New York Times story on Madison’s decision to reject federal Reading First funds in order to continue a reading program that the Times claims is effective. Education News prints as-yet unpublished letters to the Times from Reid Lyons, Robert Sweet, Louisa Moats, Linnea Ehri and Joanna Williams, Timothy Shanahan and Mark Seidenberg. Professor Moats, formerly co-investigator of the NICHD Early Interventions Project, a five-year, federally funded study of reading instruction in high-poverty schools, points out that the Office of Management and Budget “recently gave the Reading First program its highest (and unusual) rating of effectiveness.”

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 02:42 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Reading Recovery: More chipping and shredding in Fargo!

What makes this article from Fargo interesting is how it almost exactly mirrors the findings in my home district, Hortonville, and the recent analysis of Reading Recovery done in Madison. That being, a 50% success rate for RR students. From the article:

"However, West Fargo student data over time, as presented by Director of Knowledge Management Holly Budzinski Monday night, show that while this is happening in the short term, it?s not something the students sustain in the long run. The Administration has been scrutinizing the Reading Recovery program since two days after Budzinski arrived in West Fargo last January, and she has found that the majority of students served by Reading Recovery gradually lose their abilities to meet the class average by the time they reach sixth grade."

This findings support claims by Chapman, et. al., in New Zealand, who discovered RR results wash out over time. More from the news article.

"For example, one of Budzinski?s several studies into elementary school student achievement in West Fargo showed that while 57 percent of students served by Reading Recovery were able to meet the grade level as measured by a Developmental Reading Assessment after the first grade, by the time they had reached sixth grade only 18 percent met the standards, as measured by the MAP (Measure of Academic Progress) Assessment."

The costs are astounding:

"School District officials presented data Monday night showing that a $500,000 first-grade reading program does not serve its targeted student population, the lowest performers....
There are 14 Reading Recovery teachers in the West Fargo School District, providing one-on-one instruction to a total of 105 students for 30-minute increments each day during a time period of between 16 and 20 weeks."

A 50% success rate in Hortonville could be a fluke. A 50% success rate in Madison should raise an eyebrow. A 50% or so success rate in Fargo, is, a clear trend.

----------

Complete Article:

District officials scrutinize reading program
Forrest Adams
West Fargo Pioneer - 03/13/2007
School District officials presented data Monday night showing that a $500,000 first-grade reading program does not serve its targeted student population, the lowest performers, as well as proponents of the program claim it does. They asked for the help of teachers involved in it, many of whom attended the School Board meeting, to help them find a better way to serve these students.
“What we’re really trying to do is talk about the rate at which every kid in this school system is growing,” District Superintendent Dr. Dana Diesel Wallace said. “It seems to be the program, not the people. We’ve got teachers doing really good jobs.”

She said modifications to the early childhood literacy strategies in the School District do not mean teachers involved with the program in question, Reading Recovery, will lose their jobs, just that the District will possibly implement a more cost-effective solution to address the issue of reading instruction among the lower performin g students.

“We have teachers with wonderful training working in good schools; we have smart people who work really hard; I’d like for us to think more broadly about solutions,” she said. “Can we have a successful literacy program using the skills we have here? Yes we can. If we don’t address how kids read in earlier grades, some of the proficiency marks we’re shooting for in Goal 2011 will not be reached. This is for all of the students. There is room for growth in all students.”

There are 14 Reading Recovery teachers in the West Fargo School District, providing one-on-one instruction to a total of 105 students for 30-minute increments each day during a time period of between 16 and 20 weeks. Reading Recovery was developed in the 1970s by an educator in New Zealand and has been implemented in Australia, Canada, England, as well as the United States.

Advocates claim Reading Recovery is the best tool on the market because it helps the lowest performing c hildren learn to read and builds a foundation for them to attain the average level of their local class by the end of first grade through design and implementation of an individual program to meet each student’s needs.

However, West Fargo student data over time, as presented by Director of Knowledge Management Holly Budzinski Monday night, show that while this is happening in the short term, it’s not something the students sustain in the long run. The Administration has been scrutinizing the Reading Recovery program since two days after Budzinski arrived in West Fargo last January, and she has found that the majority of students served by Reading Recovery gradually lose their abilities to meet the class average by the time they reach sixth grade.

For example, one of Budzinski’s several studies into elementary school student achievement in West Fargo showed that while 57 percent of students served by Reading Recovery were able to meet the grade level as measure d by a Developmental Reading Assessment after the first grade, by the time they had reached sixth grade only 18 percent met the standards, as measured by the MAP (Measure of Academic Progress) Assessment.

“The students are not able to sustain their gains,” Diesel Wallace said after the meeting. “Some [research] says [the program] works. Some says it doesn’t.”

Vickie Bouttiete, the District’s Reading Recovery Teacher Leader for the past eight years, says her data show the program works. She and Eastwood Elementary Reading Recovery teacher for the past eight years Peggy Sola will present it to Administration officials on Wednesday. There will also be a Reading Recovery presentation at the next School Board meeting in two weeks.

In an interview on Tuesday morning, Bouttiete said Reading Recovery is the best program available for intervention to help low-performing children learn to read. In her opinion, one-on-one instruction is vital.

“By getting to know each student one on one, we can figure out what they need. Reading Recovery is very complex. There are many different components in the program,” she said.

Bouttiete suggested the District enter into a research study comparing small-group reading instruction to one-on-one instruction.

“We know that first grade can’t be responsible for what happens in other grades. I think we need to sit down and come up with a reasonable plan. Eight years ago we had small-group teaching. It wasn’t working then,” she said. “When you deal with human beings, you can’t always think about members. There are other variables, like what support are they are receiving at home. You can’t control what happens outside of school. There’s a humanistic side that I think is very important and very significant.”

Since it was first implemented in the School District, costs for Reading Recovery have exceeded $2.5 million, and that’s not including materials and training, reported Bu dzinski. The School Board does not normally get involved in curriculum issues, unless, as President Duane Hanson said, there’s a price tag attached to them.

Posted by Reed Schneider at 06:54 AM | Comments (26) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Mark Seidenberg on the Reading First controversy

Via a reader email; Language Log:

Last Friday, the New York Times ran a story about how school administrators in Madison, Wisconsin, turned down $2M in federal Reading First funds rather than change their approach to the teaching of reading (Diana Jean Schemo, "In War Over Teaching Reading, a U.S.-Local Clash"). Considering the importance of the topic, it's remarkable how poorly (or misleadingly) reported this article was. The story's key claim:

Madison officials say that a year after Wisconsin joined Reading First, in 2004, contractors pressured them to drop their approach, which blends some phonics with whole language in a program called Balanced Literacy. Instead, they gave up the money — about $2 million, according to officials here, who say their program raised reading scores.

One set of problems with the article is discussed by Ken DeRosa here. Apparently the Madison program "raised reading scores" only because the test scoring system was changed. Once apples are compared to apples, the test results show that "Madison's Balanced Literacy reading program [...] failed to increase student performance in Madison and actually caused a relative decline in the schools that were supposed to get Reading First funding."

Last night, Mark Seidenberg sent me a note in which he lays out some additional background, and identifies what he calls the "big lie" in Schemo's story:

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 06:35 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Q: Wisconsin Reading Comprehension Test Changes

Does anyone have solid information about how and when the Wisconsin Reading Comprehension Test has been revised over the years?

One obvious question in comparing scores from 1998 to those in 2005 is how the tests were changed. [NYT Article on Madison's Reading Program]

Posted by Mark Seidenberg at 03:17 PM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Saving Literature from English Departments

Tom Lutz:

I am surprised that I am not a novelist. I am an inveterate liar, so I have at least one of the necessary skills. I love the novel as a form in as deep and devoted a way as any man loved any art, and writing novels is the only thing in the way of a life's work that I've ever really wanted to undertake. Still, I remain novel-less.

I have Jack Kerouac and Hunter Thompson to blame for my early misdirected energies. They encouraged me to believe that the essence of writing was the wild life that preceded it, to believe that I was doing the better part, and the most important part, of novel-writing by imitating them not on the page, but in the bars and on the highways. I realize now this was an error in judgment.

So, too, was my decision to get a Ph.D. in literature as a step toward the nice cushy professorship that would allow me to lay back and watch myself write novel after novel, with perhaps a collection of stories here and there. The graduate work and academic gigs that followed meant that I had to teach and write a bunch of other things, those publish-or-perish scholarly books and the requisite pile of articles full of words like "overdetermination," "supplementarity," "hybridity," "imbrication" and "polyvocality," words that produced the squiggly red underlines of my spell-checker and earned me the enmity of the very novelists and poets I wanted to join.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 07:33 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Elementary School Foreign Languages

Jamaal Abdul-Alim:

That's about all the time she has if you add up all the 15-minute Spanish lessons she gives twice a week to kindergartners at Stormonth Elementary School.

The other day, her instruction involved an animated session using stuffed toys for a lesson about the Spanish words for animals, as well as the movements and sounds they make.

"¿Cómo mueve la rana?" Harris asked the students, posing in Spanish the question: "How does the frog move?"

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 05:11 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Knowledge is Power Only if You Know How To Use It

Denise Caruso:

In the 17th century, they note that reading know-how was such a known quantity that the colony of Massachusetts had a law requiring it to be taught in the home. But a century later, when Cotton Mather championed a new and effective smallpox inoculation in Boston, most of the physicians in town rejected the treatment because it was not supported by the accepted know-how of the time.

Today the situation is reversed. “While almost every child vaccinated against measles is safe from the disease,” the professors write, “an alarming number of children who are ‘taught’ to read in school never really learn to read at a level necessary to perform well in today’s society.”

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 05:59 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Madison's Reading Battle Makes the NYT: In War Over Teaching Reading, a U.S.-Local Clash

Diana Jean Schemo has been at this article for awhile:

The program, which gives $1 billion a year in grants to states, was supposed to end the so-called reading wars — the battle over the best method of teaching reading — but has instead opened a new and bitter front in the fight.

According to interviews with school officials and a string of federal audits and e-mail messages made public in recent months, federal officials and contractors used the program to pressure schools to adopt approaches that emphasize phonics, focusing on the mechanics of sounding out syllables, and to discard methods drawn from whole language that play down these mechanics and use cues like pictures or context to teach.

Federal officials who ran Reading First maintain that only curriculums including regular, systematic phonics lessons had the backing of “scientifically based reading research” required by the program.

Madison officials say that a year after Wisconsin joined Reading First, in 2004, contractors pressured them to drop their approach, which blends some phonics with whole language in a program called Balanced Literacy. Instead, they gave up the money — about $2 million, according to officials here, who say their program raised reading scores.

“We had data demonstrating that our children were learning at the rate that Reading First was aiming for, and they could not produce a single ounce of data to show the success rates of the program they were proposing,” said Art Rainwater, Madison’s superintendent of schools.

Notes & Links:

• UW Psychology Professor Mark Seidenberg:

  Whole Language was a massive, uncontrolled experiment, with millions of children as unwitting subjects.

  How it's done: Someone gets an idea

  • Often a Guru. Many Gurus in reading instruction.
  • Guru has brilliant insight about how children learn, how to teach reading - Their own personal theory
  • The idea may be personally promoted by the guru, with direct appeals to teachers
  • The idea is implemented on a vast scale, based on intuitions that it is good.

• Ruth Robarts on Madison Schools' Reading Progress.
• Mark Seidenberg: Madison Schools Distort Reading Data.

In part one of his response, Ken DeRosa of D-Ed Reckoning provides a reading passage altered to force readers to guess the meaning from context. Struggling this way does not inspire love of reading.

In part two, DeRosa analyzes the statistics to argue Madison students aren’t doing better in reading compared to other Wisconsin students; if anything, they’ve slipped a bit. Because the state reading test was made easier and the cut score for proficiency was lowered, all Wisconsin students look better. However, there was no progress in fourth-grade reading on the federal NAEP test.

With help from Rory of Parentalcation, who’s great at finding data, Ken shows that claims of fantastic progress by black students are illusory. Their scores improved on the easier test at a slightly slower rate than white students. It looks like to me as though blacks nearly caught up in basic skills but remain far behind at the proficient and advanced level. Perhaps someone who knows more statistics than I do — lots of you do — can find flaws in Ken’s analysis.

Andrew Rotherham:

Diana Schemo's NYT story on Reading First is not surprisingly sparking a lot of pushback and outraged emails, especially from the phonicshajeen. But, they have a point. There are problems with Reading First, but this may not be the best example of them at all...but, while you're there, don't miss the buried lede in graf eight...it's almost like Schemo got snowed by all sides at once on this one...

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 08:49 PM | Comments (1) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Why Illinois Test Scores Went Up?: Changing the Test or Academic Improvements?

Via a reader looking at this issue: Stephanie Banchero, Darnell Little and Diane Rado:

Illinois elementary school pupils passed the newly revamped state achievement exams at record rates last year, but critics suggest it was more the result of changes to the tests than real progress by pupils.

State and local educators attribute the improvement to smarter pupils and teachers' laser-like focus on the state learning standards—the detailed list of what pupils should know at each grade level. They also say that the more child-friendly exams, which included color and better graphics, helped pupils.

But testing experts and critics suggest that the unprecedented growth is more likely the result of changes to the exams.

Most notably, the state dramatically lowered the passing bar on the 8th-grade math test. As a result—after hovering at about 50 percent for five years—the pass rate shot up to 78 percent last year.

While the number of test questions remained generally the same, the number that counted on pupil scores dropped significantly.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 11:44 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

18 Year Old Madison Resident Wins National Vocabulary Championship

James Barron:

Rich Cronin, the president and chief executive of GSN, said he was not just thrilled to watch the competition, he was euphoric. “One person will be the ‘American Idol’ of vocabulary,” he said. (In the end, after an afternoon with its share of technical difficulties and dashed hopes, the winner was Robert Marsland, 18, of Madison, Wis. He will receive $40,000 toward college tuition. The winners in the finals and in the earlier citywide competitions held nationwide divided more than $80,000 in tuition money. The Princeton Review, a tutoring and test preparation service, came up with the questions. )

Off camera, it took Joel Chiodi, GSN’s vice president for marketing, a moment to remember a word he had learned from listening to contestants around the country.

Madison's Robert Marsland, 18, took first place at the inaugural National Vocabulary Championship Monday in New York City, nabbing a trophy and a $40,000 scholarship prize. Last year, he nailed a perfect 36 on his ACT college entrance exam, and in 2003 he represented Wisconsin in the National Spelling Bee.

He is a student at the tiny St. Ambrose Academy on Madison's west side, where he studies both Greek and Latin.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 09:52 PM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Differentiate This!

Jason Shephard:

Friday afternoon is not an optimal time for academic focus, but when Keesia Hyzer peers over her glasses and commands three minutes of “think time,” the 21 students in English 10 at West High School get busy.

“The only thing you’re thinking about right now is what you can get passionate about!” she proclaims as she snakes her way around aisles of desks.

Hyzer is teaching a new “core curriculum” class that puts the most-struggling students together with the highest-performing. It’s part of the Madison school district’s effort to reduce the achievement gap between racial minorities and whites.

The students are being asked to brainstorm topics for a semester-long research project. One by one, they stand and share their ideas, which Hyzer scribbles on the blackboard. Among the topics: Greek mythology, genocide in Sudan, prejudice against gays and lesbians. The students quiz each other on these ideas before breaking up into topic-based groups, listing on posters what they already know and what they want to learn.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 06:13 AM | Comments (1) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

February 2007 Madison West High School Memo to Freshman Honors Parents

From a reader and parent. Full size. West High's website.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 06:01 AM | Comments (13) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Whole-language Wolves in Sheep's Clothing

Louisa Moats 324K PDF:

How to Tell When “Scientifically-Based Reading Instruction” Isn’t.
In this practitioners’ guide, renowned reading expert Louisa Moats (author of the American Federation of Teachers’ Teaching Reading Is Rocket Science and an earlier Thomas B. Fordham Foundation report, Whole Language Lives On: The Illusion of “Balanced” Reading Instruction) explains how educators, parents, and concerned citizens can spot ineffective reading programs that surreptitiously hide under the “scientifically-based” banner.

While the field of reading has made enormous strides in recent years—especially with the publication of the National Reading Panel’s landmark report and enactment of the federal Reading First program discredited and ineffectual practices continue in many schools. Although the term “whole language” is rarely used today, programs based on its premises, such as Reading Recovery, Four Blocks, Guided Reading, and especially “balanced literacy,” are as popular as ever. These approaches may pay lip service to reading science, but they fail to incorporate the content and instructional methods proven to work best with students learning to read. Some districts, such as Denver, openly shun research-based practices, while others, such as Chicago, fail to provide clear, consistent leadership for principals and teachers, who are left to reinvent reading instruction, school by school.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 07:37 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Palo Alto School Board Rejects Classes in Mandarin

Jesse McKinley:

It would have seemed to be a perfect fit: an academically ambitious plan for an ambitiously academic city.

But after weeks of debate occasionally tinged with racial overtones, the Palo Alto Unified School District decided early Wednesday against a plan for Mandarin language immersion, citing practical concerns as well as whether the classes would give the small group of students in them an unfair advantage.

The proposal, which was voted down 3 to 2 after a marathon six-hour meeting of the district school board, would have established two classes taught mostly in Mandarin — the world’s most spoken language, used by nearly one billion Chinese — to 40 kindergarten and first-grade students at a local elementary school.

Grace Mah, a second-generation Chinese-American and the founder of Palo Alto Chinese Education, which lobbied for the program, said the vote was a major disappointment.

“I think there’s a number of people who are afraid of change,” said Ms. Mah, a 46-year-old computer engineer and a mother of two, including a third-grader in Palo Alto schools. “I think here’s a number of people who don’t believe in alternative education. And I think there’s a number of people who insist on equity, when in life, it just isn’t.”

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 06:52 AM | Comments (2) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Why Johnny can't read very well and what to do about it

Teacher Thomas Biel:

Juan/Sean/John doesn't read too well because we don't teach him how very well. Results from the 2005-'06 Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examinations show that 55% of Milwaukee Public Schools 10th-graders do not read at a proficient level. The majority of our kids have reading problems.

Leaders in the school district, in the Legislature and at the federal level need to take a stand and do something practical, like earmarking funds for literacy wherever literacy is a problem.

We need to go way beyond literacy coaches and in-content-area reading programs to try to solve this problem.

Reading should be made a department in every high school just as math, science and English are, and reading classes should become a part of every high school curriculum.

I'm not saying that we don't teach reading in the high schools. But, primarily, we teach reading to students who already can read. Those who can't, or who can't read well, struggle, and many fail. If they aren't designated special education or a special needs learner, these students disappear into the cracks of the system.

Typically, the struggling reader who has fallen behind somewhere in his education gets to high school and is expected to take the same English, history, science and math classes as the proficient reader.

The student in junior-year English who reads at a third-grade level but is studying the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson or "The Fall of the House of Usher" will drown in language he doesn't understand. The textbooks he has to read for history, science and math will be eight grades beyond his reading level.

hat student is primed for failure. While the content-area teacher can provide reading instruction, it is impossible to meet the needs of all the struggling readers and non-readers (reading at a second-grade level or lower) when one teacher teaches 30 students at a time.

If a 9th- or 10th-grade student hasn't passed a proficiency test in reading, shouldn't learning to read be the core of his whole curriculum? What other subjects could this student do well in if he or she can't comprehend the course material? What does one do if one can't read? Without basic reading skills, a whole life can spin out of control.

The reason reading does not lie at the center of our schools is the same reason fighting poverty is not at the top of our government's list. Our priorities are out of whack: We are interested in profit; we invest in success, not in those on the brink of failure; and we want a measurable return on our dollar.

Federally, the billions of dollars spent for war and massive violence is mind-boggling at a time when there is not enough money for improving education.

The point is: Make reading and literacy the primary educational goal at the high school level. Then hire and train more people to do it, to study it, to carry it into the community through colleges and into the schools. Push teaching as a great career and attract talented young people.

Too many teenagers stand at the brink, where not much seems possible in life. We can make the possible a stronger likelihood.

We can push the study of literacy and reading at the high school level.

Refocus legislation from conceal and carry to reveal and carry books. At the federal level, spend money on tools of mass instruction. Inject reading into brains so we can help prevent drugs injected into veins.

The payoff will be innumerable, immeasurable dividends.

Thomas Biel of Milwaukee is a high school English teacher for the Milwaukee Public Schools. His e-mail address is tbiel@sbcglobal.net

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 07:00 AM | Comments (2) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Grammar Girl

Mignon Fogarty:

Mignon works hard to balance the needs of her business with the growing success of the Grammar Girl podcast. If more than a few days pass without a new Grammar Girl episode, it is almost certain that she has a deadline for a client's project. Never fear! She will return.

Grammar Girl believes that learning is fun, and the vast rules of grammar are wonderful fodder for lifelong study. She strives to be a friendly guide in the writing world. Her arch enemy is the evil Grammar Maven who inspires terror in the untrained and is neither friendly nor helpful.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 08:45 PM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Whole Language in Sheep's clothing

Joanne Jacobs:

In a Fordham report, Whole-Language High Jinks, reading expert Louisa Moats warns that ineffective whole-language reading programs with names like “balanced literacy” are trying to grab funding intended for programs that have been proven far more effective. New York City, Denver and Salt Lake City have been misled by programs that are whole language in disguise, Moats writes. Warning signs include:

• Use of memorization and contextual guessing, instead of direct, systematic teaching for word recognition and actual comprehension;
• Rejection of explicit phonics, spelling, or grammar instruction;
• Application of the whole-language principles for English language learners.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 06:02 PM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

More Demand for Mandarin Classes

Sarah Carr:

In Milwaukee, the School of Languages added Chinese as a partial immersion program this school year. The Marshall Montessori International Baccalaureate High School is starting to build a Mandarin program. When the Milwaukee Academy of Chinese Languages opens in the fall, students as young as 4 will have at least a half-hour of Chinese-language instruction daily.

The trend is as strong in urban public schools as it is in wealthier suburban and private ones, according to experts. The University School of Milwaukee in River Hills, one of the most elite and expensive private schools in the area, will offer Chinese next school year as part of a new global studies program at the school. Ten University School teachers will travel to China in summer in preparation. "I think we see China as the next emerging power, and there's an intense interest both among our students and our parents," said Roseann Lyons, the head of the upper school.

This year, the College Board unveiled its first Advanced Placement exam in Mandarin; AP exams are often considered in college admissions, and good scores can provide students with college credit. The College Board surveyed schools about their interest in the exam before its release, and the Chinese exam caught the interest of 10 times more schools than a new topic normally would, said Michael Levine, a vice president of the Asia Society, a non-profit organization that works to educate Americans about Asian cultures.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 06:22 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

ILLITERACY REINFORCES PRISONERS' CAPTIVITY

James Sterngold:

State prisons are crowded with inmates lacking a basic education -- Their dismal job prospects mean they're likely to land back behind bars.

Gregory Davenport, a congenial 46-year-old in prison blues, shared with a visitor to the big state penitentiary here a common inmate's lament -- he left behind two well-educated daughters with whom he could not correspond because he could not read.

But Davenport, serving time for a burglary conviction, is one of the lucky ones. He has finally made progress in his long struggle with illiteracy, a breakthrough he described while holding one of the more sought-after prizes in California's overburdened corrections system -- a classroom seat. He had to wait a year to get into a class in a cramped trailer at the prison in Norco, the California Rehabilitation Center, but now he gets six hours a day of instruction and help with a learning disorder.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 06:27 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Cardozo High School AP English Teacher Video

John Poole 5:21 video:

Cardozo High School in Washington, DC, is a national pioneer in introducing Advanced Placement courses to disadvantaged students. It has found ways to build student skills so that they can begin to get passing grades on the AP exams. One of its star AP teachers, Frazier O'Leary, taught the school's first AP class 10 years ago and, since then, has become a frequent speaker and adviser to school districts around the nation.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 02:50 PM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Growing Interest in Mandarin Courses

Natasha Degen:

With its booming economy and aspirations to expand its global influence, China may have achieved a victory in American classrooms.

Take the private Chinese-American International School here, which runs from prekindergarten through eighth grade and offers instruction in all subjects — from math to music — half in Mandarin and half in English. The curriculum also includes Chinese history, culture and language studies, and in the 25 years since the school was founded, it has attracted mainly Asian-American children. But in the past few years, it has seen rapid growth in the enrollment of non-Asians.

For example, five years ago, the school was 57 percent Asian-American, but this year it is only 49 percent Asian-American, said Sharline Chiang, its spokeswoman, adding that more non-Asian-Americans have been applying in recent years. Andrew Corcoran, the head of the school, said that in the last three to four years, applications from white and Indian-American families have more than doubled, though he declined to give exact figures.

Ms. Chiang also said that this was the first year in which the prekindergarten class had more white children, 36 percent, than Asian-Americans, 32 percent.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 11:41 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

LIFE IS SHORT | Autobiography as Haiku

Elaheh Farmand:

I come from Tehran and no, there are no camels where I come from. There are cars and honking taxis that pass women in black veils or short, colorful scarves that barely cover their heads. In this beautiful prison of banned dreams, there certainly isn't a statue of liberty; men and women liberate themselves with cafes, cigars, smuggled drugs and secret relationships. In America, I am a writer. I can imagine, dream, live, breathe as an Iranian, an American. I can add color to anything; if only I could paint the gray streets of Tehran with my words.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 06:51 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Wisconsin Math, reading proficiency are much higher on state exams than on federal

Amy Hetzner:

Wisconsin students continue to fare far better on the state's standardized tests than they do on those given by the federal government, according to a new analysis that raises questions about what it means to be "proficient."

About 70% to 85% of Wisconsin students were considered proficient or better on the state's reading and math tests for the 2005-'06 school year. Yet only 33% to 40% of the state's fourth- and eighth-graders scored at least proficient on the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress in those subjects, according to the study by the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance.

The state was one of 16 in the country that had a proficiency gap of 45 to 55 percentage points, the Taxpayers Alliance found. Several states, such as Oklahoma and Mississippi, had even larger differences between the percentage of students considered proficient by their states as opposed to the federal government.

"It just creates confusion," said Dale Knapp, research director for the Taxpayers Alliance. "We want a sense of what our students know, where they sort of stand. And we're really getting two different answers that are very different answers."

The blame doesn't necessarily fall on the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examinations, said Tony Evers, deputy superintendent of the state Department of Public Instruction, which administers the tests annually.

"Math is the same in Madison as it is in Missouri as it is in Mumbai." - Michael Petrilli,
Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, a group that has raised the idea of national standards

"What that ought to be is a big signal to the folks in Wisconsin that they really need to evaluate the rigor of their standards and their assessment." - Daria Hall, Education Trust

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 07:27 AM | Comments (1) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Developing the China Connection Through Education Programs

Oregon Representative Dennis Richardson advocates substantially increasing the number of students studying mandarin [PDF]:

The U.S Department of Education in announcing its role in the National Security Language Initiative reported some statistics:

• More than 200 million children in China are studying English, a compulsory subject for all Chinese primary school students. By comparison, only about 24,000 of approximately 54 million elementary and secondary school children in the United States are studying Chinese.
• According to the Center for Applied Linguistics, only 31% of American elementary schools (and 24% of public elementary schools) report teaching foreign languages, and 79% of those schools focus on giving introductory exposure to a language rather than achieving overall proficiency. Richardson/Porter Proposal 10/31/06 4
• Only 44% of American high school students are enrolled in foreign languages classes as reported by the 2002 Digest of Education Statistics. Of those students, 69% are enrolled in Spanish and 18% in French, with less than 1% of American high school students combined study Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, Japanese, Korean, Russian or Urdu
• Less than 8% of United States undergraduates take foreign language courses, and less than 2% study abroad in any given year. Foreign language degrees account for only about 1% of undergraduate degrees conferred in the United States.

Although there is no existing report on Chinese language courses in Oregon, some Oregon schools are independently developing their own programs for their students to learn the Chinese language. Portland Public Schools has a Chinese immersion (half day Chinese, half day English) program at Woodstock elementary that started in 1997. In the Fall 2006 semester it doubled in size from one class per grade (25-30 students) to two classes (50-60 students). So far the double class is only kindergarten. One grade will be added each year as the students get older. Some of the students are now in middle school at Hosford Middle School. A high school component will be added at either Cleveland or Franklin High School. The Portland Public Schools may start another Chinese immersion program at another elementary school in the future.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 12:03 PM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

See a Good Idea. See it Run Into Trouble

Paul Beston:

In 1991, a New York State teacher of the year, John Taylor Gatto, wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal in which he announced his departure from public school teaching after 30 years. He was no longer willing to "hurt kids" in a broken system where political pressure snuffed out worthy efforts for change. By now, he wrote, "even reformers can't imagine school much different."

Indeed, the first priority of education reformers is often not success but the preservation of methods with which they are already comfortable. As Harold Henderson writes in "Let's Kill Dick and Jane," the American educational establishment possesses "an uncanny ability to transform golden ideas for change -- from left, right, or center -- into a leaden sludge." Mr. Henderson, a longtime staff writer for the Chicago Reader, describes the fate of one textbook company -- Illinois-based Open Court -- as it tried to bring its share of golden ideas to a resistant school system.

The book's title refers to the basal readers that were once a mainstay in American schools: Dick and Jane, created by advocates of the "Look-Say" theory of reading instruction in which children were taught to memorize the appearance of words at the expense of phonetic understanding. The theory has since been discredited, at least in part by the publication in 1955 of Rudolf Flesch's best-selling "Why Johnny Can't Read," which urged a return to phonics instruction.

Blouke Carus and his wife, Marianne, Americans with strong German roots and a familiarity with the exacting standards of the German gymnasium, read Flesch's book and formed Open Court in 1962. Together with a small band of dedicated educational theorists and consultants, they created innovative materials with the goal of educating the American masses as rigorously as the elites of Europe. Providing both a history of this remarkable company and a withering portrait of the education culture, Mr. Henderson's book is more compelling than any lay reader could reasonably expect.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 03:07 PM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Tougher reading program means low city grades

Joe Smydo:

Parents of some Pittsburgh elementary school students will find an unwelcome surprise -- unusually low marks in reading -- when their children bring home report cards Nov. 17.

Because the Pittsburgh Public Schools this fall introduced a standardized grading system and what it described as a more rigorous reading program, some students have seen their performance slip on classroom tests.

That will translate into lower grades on report cards than parents are accustomed to seeing, said Susan Sauer, curriculum supervisor for elementary reading, and Barbara Rudiak, executive director for 18 district elementary schools. Some parents already have noticed a drop in their children's test scores.

"This has created a certain amount of controversy with principals, parents and teachers," said Dr. Rudiak, who is project manager for the "Treasures" reading program, purchased from Macmillan/McGraw-Hill for about 13,250 students in kindergarten through grade five. The program is also used in elementary classrooms at the district's K-8 schools and accelerated learning academies.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 07:57 PM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Project Follow Through

Brett:

Have you ever heard of Project Follow Through? Most people haven't, despite the fact that it was the largest-scale and most expensive education study ever conducted, costing more than $1 billion and involving more than 20,000 children.

PFT was initiated by President Lyndon Johnson as part of his "war on poverty", and was designed to see how educators could sustain and build on the advances made by young children in Head Start programs. The program tested multiple approaches to reading instruction, and generated clear evidence as to the efficacy of some programs over others.

Sounds great, right? A large-scale, longitudinal research study that offered unambiguous and actionable results. So why doesn't anyone know about PFT - and why do we still have such a hard time teaching kids to read?

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 06:21 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Read 180: A Reading Boost for Older Children

Amy Hetzner:

Reading aloud embarrassed Vanessa Hernandez when she had to do it in a classroom full of students for whom words and pronunciation seemed to come easy.

But after seeing her reading ability jump two grade levels in just over a month, and with only a computer judging how she pronounces words, Vanessa Hernandez said she is finally learning how reading can be fun.

"You feel so much confidence," the sixth-grader from Waukesha's Hadfield Elementary School said of the improvements she's made this year.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 06:47 AM | Comments (6) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Clauses and Commas Make a Comeback: SAT Helps Return Grammar to Class

Daniel de Vise:

Mike Greiner teaches grammar to high school sophomores in half-hour lessons, inserted between Shakespeare and Italian sonnets. He is an old-school grammarian, one of a defiant few in the Washington region who believe in spending large blocks of class time teaching how sentences are built.

For this he has earned the alliterative nickname "Grammar Greiner," along with a reputation as one of the tougher draws in the Westfield High School English department.

Or, as one student opined in a sonnet he wrote, "Mr. Greiner, I think you're torturing us."

Greiner, 43, teaches future Advanced Placement students at the Chantilly school. Left on their own to decide where to place a comma, "they'll get it right about half of the time," he said. "But half is an F."

Ten or 20 years ago, Greiner might have been ostracized for his views or at least counseled to keep them to himself. Grammar lessons vanished from public schools in the 1970s, supplanted by a more holistic view of English instruction. A generation of teachers and students learned grammar through the act of writing, not in isolated drills and diagrams.

Today, Greiner is encouraged, even sought out. Direct grammar instruction, long thought to do more harm than good, is welcome once more

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 12:36 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Significant errors and misconceptions - “Billions for an Inside Game on Reading" by the Washington Post

Robert W. Sweet, Jr.

This letter and the enclosure are an appeal to you for help in alerting your readers to significant errors and misconceptions in an article printed in the Post on October 1, 2006 titled "Billions for an Inside Game on Reading" by Michael Grunwald.

He asserted that Reading First grants were awarded to preferred reading programs, and that billions of dollars were misspent because the requirement in Reading First that reading programs be based on "scientifically based reading research" were ignored.

Below is a summary of the essential facts that document the errors and misconceptions that have damaged one of the most effective programs to teach vulnerable children to read. Attached to this letter is a detailed presentation that seeks to correct the record.

It is my hope that you will consider printing a clarification so that the public you serve will know the truth about Reading First.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 05:19 PM | Comments (1) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

The End of Literacy

Bill McCoy:

In a comment on my post Does Reading Really Matter?, bowerbird challenged me to name names on who's arguing the position that "the end of literacy is nigh, and that's OK".

Well William Crossman for one is practically exuberant about post-literacy:

By 2020, electronically-developed countries will be well on their way to becoming oral cultures... Reading, writing, spelling, alphabets, pictographic written languages, written grammar rules, and all other written notational systems will be rapidly exiting the scene

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 06:39 PM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Reading First Curriculum Review

Reading First, subject to a scathing economic/lobbying audit recently was also just reviewed in this report from the Center for Education Policy [Kathleen Kennedy Manzo] [Full Report 176K PDF]:

“Participating schools and districts have made many changes in reading curriculum, instruction, assessment, and scheduling,” the report by the Washington-based Center on Education Policy says. “Many districts have expanded Reading First instructional programs and assessment systems to non-Reading First schools.”

Titled “Keeping Watch on Reading First,” the Sept. 20 report by the research and advocacy group is based on a 2005 survey of all 50 states and a nationally representative sample of some 300 school districts in the federal Title I program, as well as case studies of 38 of those districts and selected schools.

Some 1,700 districts and more than 5,600 schools receive grants under Reading First, which was authorized by the No Child Left Behind Act.

While hard data, such as test-score comparisons, are still not available, the survey results show that “with scientifically based research, strict requirements [for following research findings], and substantial funding, you can bring about results,” said CEP President Jack Jennings.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 06:07 AM | Comments (1) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Notes & Links on Reading First

Andrew Rotherham:

Title I Monitor is all over it here. Quick reax: First, this is going to walk on the message the Secretary was hoping to get out next week in her big speech. Second, harder to argue that Jack Jennings is in the tank for Democrats now, here is his recent evaluation praising Reading First! Finally, politically, this could set the issue of good reading instruction back a good bit, and that's seriously a real shame.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 06:16 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Audit Finds Education Department Missteps

Ben Feller:

A scorching internal review of the Bush administration's billion-dollar-a-year reading program says the Education Department ignored the law and ethical standards to steer money how it wanted.

The government audit is unsparing in its view that the Reading First program has been beset by conflicts of interest and willful mismanagement. It suggests the department broke the law by trying to dictate which curriculum schools must use.

Reading First aims to help young children read through scientifically proven programs, and the department considers it a jewel of No Child Left Behind, Bush's education law. Just this week, a separate review found the effort is helping schools raise achievement.

US Education Secretary Margaret Spelling's statement. The complete Inspector General report [2.9MB PDF].

Posted by Neal Gleason at 04:38 PM | Comments (13) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Student Math & Writing Skills

I have a friend that teaches at MATC--she tells me that she is shocked at the lack of math and writing ability of the Madison high school students coming to MATC's two year technical programs. MATC is very important to Wisconsin's future. What is happening at the high school level that these students are not prepared properly? Anyone have any thoughts?

Posted by Carole McGuire at 09:13 PM | Comments (3) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Want to Write? Read

Elon Journalism Professor and Pulitzer Prize Winner Michael Skube:

The schools are no different, even if their stake in creativity is more defensible. And so, in the middle schools and even elementary schools, students scribble away in journals, write skits and sketches, labor over sentences littered with misspelled words (this is called "creative spelling") and faulty grammar. The aim is not competency in the plain carpentry of prose but self-expression and creativity. It is the Little League of Art. Nothing wrong with self-expression. But it's worth asking when self-expression devolves into self-spelunking and the preening narcissism evident everywhere on the Internet.

Parents know teenagers can rattle away with ease when instant messaging friends. But for many young people, the expedient baby talk of IM-ing and text-messaging becomes "real" English, as natural as conversation and often a preferred substitute.

Ask them to write straightforward English and you would think it was a second language, even for kids whose ancestors have been here generations. Sentence structure, punctuation, the parts of speech — they are almost completely unfamiliar with any of it. Wanting to sound as if they are someone they are not, college students invariably button their verbal collars, straighten their ties and turn out sentences stiff as starched shirts.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 06:58 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Public Domain Audio Books

Craig Silverman:

Ms. Shallenberg’s recordings of “The Secret Garden,” “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” and other works are now available, free, to anyone with an Internet connection and basic audio software. She is part of a core group of volunteers who give their voices and spare time to LibriVox, a project that produces audiobooks of works in the public domain.

“Everything I read to Henry was copyrighted,” Ms. Shallenberg said, adding that she was frustrated she couldn’t share those works. “The idea of creating audiobooks that other people could enjoy was exciting.”

LibriVox is the largest of several emerging collectives that offer free or inexpensive audiobooks of works whose copyrights have expired, from Plato to “The Wind in the Willows.” (In the United States, this generally means anything published or registered for copyright before 1923.) The results range from solo readings done by amateurs in makeshift home studios to high-quality recordings read by actors or professional voice talent.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 07:10 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Writing Off Reading

Michael Skube:

In our better private universities and flagship state schools today, it's hard to find a student who graduated from high school with much lower than a 3.5 GPA, and not uncommon to find students whose GPAs were 4.0 or higher. They somehow got these suspect grades without having read much. Or if they did read, they've given it up. And it shows -- in their writing and even in their conversation.

A few years ago, I began keeping a list of everyday words that may as well have been potholes in exchanges with college students. It began with a fellow who was two months away from graduating from a well-respected Midwestern university.

"And what was the impetus for that?" I asked as he finished a presentation.

At the word "impetus" his head snapped sideways, as if by reflex. "The what?" he asked.

"The impetus. What gave rise to it? What prompted it?"

I wouldn't have guessed that impetus was a 25-cent word. But I also wouldn't have guessed that "ramshackle" and "lucid" were exactly recondite, either. I've had to explain both. You can be dead certain that today's college students carry a weekly planner. But they may or may not own a dictionary, and if they do own one, it doesn't get much use. ("Why do you need a dictionary when you can just go online?" more than one student has asked me.)

As freshmen start showing up for classes this month, colleges will have a new influx of high school graduates with gilded GPAs, and it won't be long before one professor whispers to another: Did no one teach these kids basic English? The unhappy truth is that many students are hard-pressed to string together coherent sentences, to tell a pronoun from a preposition, even to distinguish between "then" and "than." Yet they got A's.

Exit exams have become almost a necessity because the GPA is not to be trusted. In my experience, a high SAT score is far more reliable than a high GPA -- more indicative of quickness and acuity, and more reflective of familiarity with language and ideas. College admissions specialists are of a different view and are apt to label the student with high SAT scores but mediocre grades unmotivated, even lazy.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 02:12 PM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Growing, Detrimental use of Powerpoint

I previously posted links to articles discussing the inappropriate use of Powerpoint - particularly in lower grades. I've been reading Thomas Rick's "Fiasco" . Ricks' mentions that Powerpoint was used to draft and communicate battle and reconstruction plans in Iraq:

[Army Lt. General David] McKiernan had another, smaller but nagging issue: He couldn't get Franks to issue clear orders that stated explicitly what he wanted done, how he wanted to do it, and why. Rather, Franks passed along PowerPoint briefing slides that he had shown to Rumsfeld: "It's quite frustrating the way this works, but the way we do things nowadays is combatant commanders brief their products in PowerPoint up in Washington to OSD and Secretary of Defense…In lieu of an order, or a frag [fragmentary order], or plan, you get a bunch of PowerPoint slides…[T]hat is frustrating, because nobody wants to plan against PowerPoint slides."

Some alternatives - outliners that help conceptualize a work prior to expressing it in words. Internet outliners are extraordinarly powerful:

• Omni Outliner
• OPML Editor
• OPML Manager

Don Norman: In Defense of Powerpoint.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 06:10 PM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Schools Try Elementary Approach To Teaching Foreign Languages

Maria Glod:

School systems across the Washington area are adding foreign language classes in elementary grades in response to a call from government and business leaders who say the country needs more bilingual speakers to stay competitive and even to fight terrorism.

Educators say that the youngest brains have the greatest aptitude for absorbing language and that someone who is bilingual at a young age will have an easier time learning a third or fourth language later on. Compared with adults or even high school students, young children are better able to learn German with near-native pronunciation or mimic the subtle tones of Mandarin.

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Tasting Freedom’s Simple Joys in the Barnes & Noble

Samuel Freedman:

Nearly a decade ago, hanging out in a bookstore would have seemed so corny. Back then, Mr. Edwards was a high school dropout, known as Kat on the streets of Paterson, and Top Cat on his arrest record, the one that described his itinerary for the evening of Nov. 12, 1997. With a friend, a stolen car and several weapons, he robbed nine people within an hour. He wound up with a few dollars, some jewelry and, ultimately, a prison sentence of 9 years, 10 months and 4 days.

All that time gave him a chance to reconsider the virtues of corniness. He had gotten his first dictionary in prison, from a friend serving 30 years for homicide. Mostly, Mr. Edwards took it to the law library, doing a felon’s version of homework. Only later, after he was transferred to a halfway house in Newark, had someone suggested to him that reading had purposes beyond filing an appeal.

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ED.Gov: New Report Shows Progress in Reading First Implementation and Changes in Reading Instruction

US Department of Education:

Children in Reading First classrooms receive significantly more reading instruction and schools participating in the program are much more likely to have a reading coach, according to the Reading First Implementation Evaluation: Interim Report, released today by the U.S. Department of Education. The report shows significant differences between what Reading First teachers report about their instructional practices and the responses of teachers in non-Reading First Title I schools, which are demographically similar to the Reading First schools.

"The goal of Reading First is to help teachers translate scientific insights into practical tools they can use in their classrooms," Secretary Spellings said. "The program is helping millions of children and providing teachers with high-quality, research-based support. As we push towards our ultimate goal of every child reading and doing math on grade level by 2014, Reading First is a valuable help to our efforts."

The report shows Reading First schools appear to be implementing the major elements of the program as intended by the No Child Left Behind legislation. Reading First respondents reported that they made substantial changes to their reading materials and that the instruction is more likely to be aligned with scientifically based reading research; they are more likely to have scheduled reading blocks and spend more time teaching reading; they are more likely to apply assessment results for instructional purposes, and they receive professional development focused on helping struggling readers more often than non-Reading First Title I schools in the evaluation.

Madison School Board Superintendent Art Rainwater wrote an email responding to a Wisconsin State Journal's Editorial.

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Grammar Sheriff

Sam Whiting:

On the root of the problem:

I only learned within the last year that they stopped teaching rules of grammar in the '60s. They taught people what to say but not why. No wonder why people make so many mistakes. They can't go back in their minds and say, "This is transitive, this is intransitive." It's the "lie, lay" thing.

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Half of State Tests Don't Draw on State Standards, AFT Study Finds

Education Week:

Only 11 states met the union’s criteria for strong standards and tests that “align” with them, it says, and 20 states “have much work to do”—beefing up their standards, matching up tests with standards, or showing what they have done online.

“The systems in those states aren’t smart enough yet to bear the weight of the accountability functions they are asked to serve,” said Antonia Cortese, the AFT’s executive vice president. As one example of such a function, she cited the “in need of improvement” label applied to schools if they don’t meet measures of adequate yearly progress, or AYP. The label triggers a series of consequences for the schools.

In their study, the AFT researchers looked for standards to be clear, explicit by grade level, and rooted in the knowledge and skills for the particular subject, as well as accessible on the Web. Similarly, documentation of the relationship between the standards and the tests had to be available online.

The researchers contend that such “transparency” helps teachers do their jobs and builds trust in the system among educators and the public.

The union, which from 1995 to 2001 published an annual report evaluating states’ academic standards, found significant progress on that front. The standards that relate to NCLB testing are more specific and more often set out by grade levels—a help to teachers and test-makers—than the across-the-board standards examined five years ago, the report says. The progress is particularly noteworthy because of the pressure on state education departments to respond quickly to the sweeping federal law’s mandates, which include annual tests in reading and mathematics in grades 3-8 and once in high school and, starting next year, three tests of science spread across grade levels.

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Who is to Blame?

Walter Williams:

Let's look at the recent "Nation's Report Card," published annually by the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics.

Nationally, in reading, only 13 percent of black fourth graders, and 11 percent of black eighth graders score as proficient. Twenty-nine percent achieve a score of "basic," defined as a partial knowledge and skills needed to be proficient in the grade. Fifty-nine percent score below basic, lacking necessary knowledge and skills. It's the same story for black eighth graders, with 40 percent scoring basic and 49 percent below basic.

In math, it's roughly the same story. For black fourth graders, 12 percent score proficient, 47 percent score basic and 40 percent below basic. For black eighth graders, 8 percent score proficient, while 33 percent score basic and 59 percent score below basic; however, 1 percent of black fourth graders and eighth graders achieved an advanced score in math.

Teachers and politicians respond to this tragic state of affairs by saying more money is needed. The Washington, D.C., school budget is about the nation's highest with about $15,000 per pupil. Its student/teacher ratio, at 15.2 to 1, is lower than the nation's average. Despite this, black academic achievement in D.C. is the lowest in the nation. Reading scores for D.C.'s fourth-grade black students are: 7 percent proficient, 21 percent basic and 71 percent below basic. For eighth-graders, it's 6 percent proficient, 33 percent basic and 58 percent below basic.

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Upper Grades, Lower Reading Skills

Lori Aratani:

The Alliance for Excellent Education, a Washington-based education policy research and advocacy group, estimates that as many as 6 million middle and high school students can't read at acceptable levels. It's an issue for students well above the bottom of the class. A report released in March that looked at the reading skills of college-bound students who took the ACT college entrance exam found that only 51 percent were prepared for college-level reading.

"That is what is the most startling and troubling," said Cyndie Schmeiser, ACT's senior vice president of research and development. "The literacy problem affects all groups -- not exactly in the same ways, but it's affecting all groups regardless of gender, income or race."

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Publishing Industry Statistics - Interesting Reading Numbers

Dan Poynter:

One-third of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives. Many do not even graduate from high school.

58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school.

42% of college graduates never read another book.

80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year.

70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
57% of new books are not read to completion.

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US Dept of Education: Academic Competitiveness Grants

US Department of Education:

Participation in a rigorous secondary school program of study may qualify a postsecondary student to receive an ACG, if otherwise eligible. The Secretary recognizes at least one rigorous secondary school program of study for each state annually. States may submit proposals for recognition or may elect to accept rigorous secondary school programs of study pre-recognized by the Secretary. The following are recognized rigorous secondary school programs of study for each state for the 2006-07 award year.

• A set of courses similar to the State Scholars Initiative
• Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB) courses and test
  scores.
• Wisconsin Coursework Requirements.
• Wisconsin Dual Enrollment Program.

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Harper Lee Surfaces on Reading

CNN:

Harper Lee, author of the novel "To Kill A Mockingbird," has written a rare published item -- a letter for Oprah Winfrey's magazine on how she became a reader as a child in a rural, Depression-era Alabama town.

In a letter for the magazine's July "special summer reading issue," Lee tells of becoming a reader before first grade: She was read to by her older sisters and brother, a story a day by her mother, newspaper articles by her father. "Then, of course, it was Uncle Wiggly at bedtime."

She also writes about the scarcity of books in the 1930s in Monroeville, where she grew up and where she lives part of each year. That deficit, combined with a lack of anything else to do -- no movies for kids, no parks for games -- made books especially treasured, she writes.

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Brave New World: Are our kids ready to compete in the new global economy? Maybe not

Marc Eisen:

Most of us have had those eerie moments when the distant winds of globalization suddenly blow across our desks here in comfortable Madison. For parents, it can lead to an unsettling question: Will my kids have the skills, temperament and knowledge to prosper in an exceedingly competitive world?

I’m not so sure.

I’m a fan of Madison’s public schools, but I have my doubts if such preparation is high on the list of school district priorities. (I have no reason to think things are any better in the suburban schools.) Like a lot of parents, I want my kids pushed, prodded, inspired and challenged in school. Too often -- in the name of equity, or progressive education, or union protectionism, or just plain cheapness -- that isn’t happening.

Brave New World: Are our kids ready to compete in the new global economy? Maybe not

Last summer I saw the future, and it was unsettling.

My daughter, then 14, found herself a racial minority in a class of gifted kids in a three-week program at Northwestern University. Of the 16 or so kids, a dozen were Asian or Asian American.

The class wasn't computer science or engineering or chemistry -- classes increasingly populated by international students at the college level -- but a “soft” class, nonfiction writing.

When several hundred parents and students met that afternoon for the introductory remarks, I spotted more turbaned Sikhs in the auditorium than black people. I can't say if there were any Hispanics at all.

Earlier, I had met my daughter's roommate and her mom -- both thin, stylish and surgically connected to their cell phones and iPods. I casually assumed that the kid was a suburban princess, Chinese American division. Later, my daughter told me that her roommate was from Hong Kong, the daughter of a banker, and had at the age of 14 already taken enrichment classes in Europe and Canada. Oh, and she had been born in Australia.

Welcome to the 21st century.

In the coming decades, you can be sure the faces of power and influence won't be monochromatic white and solely American. Being multilingual will be a powerful advantage in the business world, familiarity and ease with other cultures will be a plus, and, above all, talent and drive will be the passwords of success in the global economy.

Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat, his chronicle of the rapid economic and social changes wrought by the mercury-like spread of new technology, serves as an essential primer for understanding this new world.

In a nutshell, we shouldn't bet on American hegemony in technology and economic growth in the 21st century. In a ramped-up, knowledge-based, digitalized economy, there are no borders. The built-in advantage the U.S. enjoyed after World War II -- our industrial based was untouched, while the rest of the developed world's was in ruins -- has finally run its course. Today, many tech jobs can just as easily be performed in Bangalore and Beijing as in Fitchburg.

Whether America's youth, raised in the lap of luxury with an overpowering sense of entitlement, will prosper in this meritocratic environment is an interesting question. And what of America's underprivileged youth, struggling in school and conspicuously short of family assets: How well will they fare in the new global marketplace?

My own a-ha! moment came a year ago at about the same time I dropped my youngest daughter off at Northwestern. Out of the blue I received an e-mail from a young man in India, offering his services to proofread the paper. Technically, it was no problem to ship him copy, and because of the 12-hour time difference he could work while the rest of us slept and played -- if we wanted to go down the outsourcing road.

Most of us have had those eerie moments when the distant winds of globalization suddenly blow across our desks here in comfortable Madison. For parents, it can lead to an unsettling question: Will my kids have the skills, temperament and knowledge to prosper in an exceedingly competitive world?

I'm not so sure.

I'm a fan of Madison's public schools, but I have my doubts if such preparation is high on the list of school district priorities. (I have no reason to think things are any better in the suburban schools.) Like a lot of parents, I want my kids pushed, prodded, inspired and challenged in school. Too often -- in the name of equity, or progressive education, or union protectionism, or just plain cheapness -- that isn't happening.

Instead, what we see in Madison is just the opposite: Advanced classes are choked off; one-size-fits-all classes (“heterogeneous class groupings”) are mandated for more and more students; the talented-and-gifted staff is slashed; outside groups promoting educational excellence are treated coolly if not with hostility; and arts programs are demeaned and orphaned. This is not Tom Friedman's recipe for student success in the 21st century.

Sure, many factors can be blamed for this declining state of affairs, notably the howlingly bad way in which K-12 education is financed in Wisconsin. But much of the problem also derives from the district's own efforts to deal with “the achievement gap.”

That gap is the euphemism used for the uncomfortable fact that, as a group, white students perform better academically than do black and Hispanic students. More to the point, mandating heterogeneous class grouping becomes a convenient cover for reducing the number of advanced classes that fail the PC test: too white and unrepresentative of the district's minority demographics.

The problem is that heterogeneous classes are based on the questionable assumption that kids with a wide range of skills -- from high-schoolers reading at a fourth-grade level to future National Merit students -- can be successfully taught in the same sophomore classroom.

“It can be done effectively, but the research so far suggests that it usually doesn't work,” says Paula Olszewski-Kubilius, head of Northwestern's Center for Talent Development, which runs an enrichment program for Evanston's schools.

I have to ask: After failing to improve the skills of so many black and Hispanic kids, is the Madison district now prepared to jeopardize the education of its most academically promising kids as well?

Please don't let me be misunderstood. Madison schools are making progress in reducing the achievement gap. The district does offer alternatives for its brightest students, including college-level Advanced Placement classes. There are scores of educators dedicated to improving both groups of students. But it's also clear which way the wind blows from the district headquarters: Embrace heterogeneous classrooms. Reject tracking of brighter kids. Suppress dissent in the ranks.

The district's wrongheaded approach does the most damage in the elementary-school years. That's where the schools embrace dubious math and reading pedagogy and shun innovative programs, like those operated by the Wisconsin Center for Academically Talented Youth, a nonprofit group that works tirelessly to promote gifted education. (Credit school board president Johnny Winston Jr. for cracking the door open to WCATY.)

In a perfect world, Madison would learn from Evanston's schools and their relationship with WCATY's peer, the Center for Talent Development. Faced with predominantly white faces in its advanced high school classes, this racially mixed district didn't dump those classes but hired Olszewski-Kubilius' group to run an after-school and weekend math and science enrichment program for promising minority students in grades 3-6.

In other words, raise their performance so they qualify for those advanced classes once they get to high school. Now there's an idea that Tom Friedman would like!

MARC EISEN IS EDITOR OF ISTHMUS.Email: EISEN at ISTHMUS.COM

• Wisconsin Center for Academically Talented Youth
• Northwestern Center for Talent Development
• Paula Olszewski-Kubilius
• Mandatory grouping in Madison West's English 10
• Connected Math
• Reading Recovery

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 07:18 AM | Comments (5) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

How Schools Pay a (Very High) Price for Failing to Teach Reading Properly

Brent Staples:

Imagine yourself the parent of an otherwise bright and engaging child who has reached the fourth grade without learning to read. After battling the public school bureaucracy for what seems like a lifetime, you enroll your child in a specialized private school for struggling readers. Over the next few years, you watch in grateful amazement as a child once viewed as uneducable begins to read and experiences his first successes at school.

Most parents are so relieved to find help for their children that they never look back at the public schools that failed them. But a growing number of families are no longer willing to let bygones be bygones. They have hired special education lawyers and asserted their rights under the federal Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, which allows disabled children whom the public schools have failed to receive private educations at public expense.

Federal disability law offers public school systems a stark choice: The schools can properly educate learning-disabled children — or they can fork over the money to let private schools do the job.

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Audio / Video: Madison School Board Schools of Hope / Reading Presentation

The Madison School Board heard a presentation on the Schools of Hope initiative Monday evening. There was a lively discussion on the results of this initiative. MP3 Audio or Video

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Twenty Years Ago: The Read Aloud Handbook

Joanne Levy-Prewitt:

"The Read Aloud Handbook" by Jim Trelease was a guide to literature for children. As I recall, the second half of the book was a collection of book and story titles appropriate for different ages, but it was the first half that really influenced my parenting philosophy.

Simply put, Trelease wanted parents to ban television and read aloud to their young children, until, and even after, they could read on their own. First published in 1982, many children who were the beneficiaries of Trelease's ideas are now college age and beyond.

It would be interesting to conduct a study to determine whether the children Trelease hoped to influence have become active readers as adults. My guess is that many of them stopped reading for pleasure when they started middle school and were assigned specific books.

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What Education Schools Aren't Teaching About Reading--and What Elementary Teachers Aren't Learning

National Council on Teacher Quality:

In this groundbreaking report, NCTQ studied a large representative sampling of ed schools to find out what future elementary teachers are--and are not--learning about reading instruction. The report, the most comprehensive of its kind, determined that education schools are ignoring the principles of good reading instruction that would prepare prospective teachers how to better teach reading. View the Executive Summary or Full Report, or order multiple copies of the Executive Summary free of charge.

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MADreads

Kristian Knutsen:

Looking for a different book to read every day? If so, the Madison Public Library can be of assistance. Early this month, the library started publishing live a new blog named MADreads. It features a short book review nearly every day, starting with "contemporary urban fantasy," how-to guides and historical fiction, before moving on to everything in between and beyond.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 07:23 PM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

More Funding for Adult Literacy Education

Andy Hall:

America is heading for an explosion in the number of immigrant children who grow up unable to read, write or fit into society, a national literacy expert says.

Robert Wedgeworth, president of ProLiteracy Worldwide, a nonprofit agency based in Syracuse, N.Y., plans to tell an audience in Madison today that the nation must sharply increase support for adult education programs.

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A Letter to Parents Regarding Reading

Brett:

Research has clearly shown that parental involvement - parents seen reading in the home, parents reading to their children, parents ensuring that children have an array of reading materials available to them - is one of the most critical indicators of success in helping a child learn how to read.

And the education community treats this as an unmentionable secret.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 07:13 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

A Lengthy Reading Recovery Discussion

The use and effectiveness of Reading Recovery is in the news elsewhere. More links. Joanne Jacobs has more.

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The heterogeneous debate: Some say best students get short shrift

Sandy Cullen:

Some parents say the Madison School District's spending cuts, combined with its attempts to close the achievement gap, have reduced opportunities for higher-achieving students.
Jeff Henriques, a parent of two high-achieving students, said one of the potential consequences he sees is "bright flight" - families pulling students with higher abilities out of the district and going elsewhere because their needs aren't being met.

One of the larger examples of this conflict is surfacing in the district's move toward creating "heterogeneous" classes that include students of all achievement levels, eliminating classes that group students of similar achievement levels together.

Advocates of heterogeneous classes say students achieving at lower levels benefit from being in classes with their higher-achieving peers. But some parents of higher-achieving students are concerned their children won't be fully challenged in such classes - at a time when the amount of resources going to talented and gifted, or TAG, programs is also diminishing.

Watch Professor Gamoran's presentation, along with others related to the homogeneous / heterogeneous grouping debate here. Links and commentary and discussion on West's English 10. Jason Shepherd took a look at these issues in his "Fate of the Schools" article.

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Building Knowledge: The Case for Bringing Content into the Language Arts Block

E.D. Hirsch, Jr.:

I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas.... Soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.

—J. M. Keynes
The General Theory of Employment,
Interest, and Money

Consider the following sentence, which is one that most literate Americans can understand, but most literate British people cannot, even when they have a wide vocabulary and know the conventions of the standard language:

Jones sacrificed and knocked in a run.

Typically, a literate British person would know all the words in the sentence yet wouldn’t comprehend it. (In fairness, most Americans would be equally baffled by a sentence about the sport of cricket.)

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Irvine Co. To Donate $20M to Schools

David Haldane:

The Irvine Co. said Monday it would provide $20 million over the next 10 years to fund fine arts, music and science programs for fourth- through sixth-graders in the Irvine Unified School District.

The money will be in addition to the $25 million pledged by the Newport Beach developer to Irvine schools in 2000, officials said.

"We think it's an important investment to acknowledge the importance of these programs in providing a comprehensive quality education in the school district," said Michael LeBlanc, a company senior vice president.

Dean Waldfogel, the school district's superintendent, expressed delight."We're very excited," he said. "This will allow us to maintain the program at its current level."

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Educational Flatline in Math and Reading Bedevils USA

Greg Toppo:

Despite nearly 30 years of improvements in U.S. children's overall quality of life, their basic academic skills have barely budged, according to research led by a Duke University sociologist.
The "educational flatline," as measured by scores on math and reading exams, defies researchers' expectations, because other quality-of-life measures, such as safety and family income, have improved steadily since 1975.

More recently, even areas that had worsened in the 1970s and 1980s, such as rates of teen suicide, have improved dramatically, so researchers had expected that education improvements would soon follow. They didn't.

The Educational Flatline, Causes and Results:The Education Flatline: Causes and Solutions

• The Education Flatline: Overview , by Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill



• A Short History of School Reform , by David T. Gordon



• The Role of PreK-3 in Improving School Achievement , by Gene Maeroff



• Charter Schools and No Child Left Behind: An Oncoming Collision? , by Bruno Manno and Martin West



• The Case for National Curriculum, National Standards, and National Tests , by Diane Ravitch



• If Wishes Were Horses: The Reality behind Teacher Quality Findings , by Kate Walsh

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Schools Cut Back Subjects to Push Reading and Math

Sam Dillon:

Thousands of schools across the nation are responding to the reading and math testing requirements laid out in No Child Left Behind, President Bush's signature education law, by reducing class time spent on other subjects and, for some low-proficiency students, eliminating it.

Schools from Vermont to California are increasing — in some cases tripling — the class time that low-proficiency students spend on reading and math, mainly because the federal law, signed in 2002, requires annual exams only in those subjects and punishes schools that fall short of rising benchmarks.

The changes appear to principally affect schools and students who test below grade level.

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Considering the Future of Madison Schools

Marc Eisen:

Unless you have a kid in the Madison schools, many of the issues discussed by the four Madison school board candidates in our weekly Take-Home Test may not strike a familiar chord.

That's why we asked our schools reporter Jason Shepard to provide an overview in this week's Isthmus of the trends buffeting the 24,000-student district. The cover story is: The Fate of the Schools: Will the Madison district sink or swim? April 4th elections could prove pivotal.

As you'll read, the growing number of poor students, decreased state funding and nasty board infighting provide a sobering context for the election.

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The Rose Report: Independent Review of the Teaching of Early Reading

BBC:

The national curriculum in England is to be revised so children are taught to read primarily using the method known as synthetic phonics [Full Report 432K PDF]

In the most famous experiment, in Clackmannanshire, children taught using synthetic phonics were years ahead of their contemporaries by the time they moved on to secondary school.

The method is already endorsed by the Scottish Executive.

"Unless you can actually decode the words on the page you will not be able, obviously, to comprehend them," Jim Rose

Critics say it might teach children to read - but not necessarily to understand what they are reading.

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An innovative teacher turns kids into writers

Stacy Teicher:

"Out of all my classes, this is the most exciting - she captures your attention while she's teaching," says senior Phillip Longo, who first encountered her in an after-school class for students who had failed English.

Loved as she is for handing out creative assignments, never "busywork," her students also give Barile credit for insisting they put their commas in the right place.

"She helps everyone with their writing so much," says Autumn Zandt, a senior in Barile's advanced-placement course. "It's been really nice to have someone focusing on [grammar] before we go away to college."

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UW-Madison to offer 32 languages in summer 2006 offerings

Ronnie Hess:

UW-Madison, a national leader in language education, will offer 32 languages this summer in a variety of for-credit courses. The languages will be taught through full immersion programs, special summer institutes and regular course offerings.

The languages include Arabic, Bengali, Burmese, English as a Second Language, Filipino, French, German, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Hmong, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Javanese, Khmer, Lao, Latin, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Norwegian, Persian, Sanskrit, Spanish, Swedish, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Tibetan, Urdu, and Vietnamese.

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Study: Reading Key to College Success

Ben Feller:

One major factor separates high school graduates who are ready for college from those who aren't, a new study shows: how well students handle complex reading.

Trouble is, most states don't even have reading standards for high school grades, and not a single state defines the kind of complexity that high school reading should have.

"If you're not asking for it, you're not going to get it," said Cynthia Schmeiser, senior vice president for research and development at ACT, the nonprofit company that did the study.

In a complex text, organization may be elaborate, messages may be implicit, interactions among ideas or characters may be subtle, and the vocabulary is demanding and intricate.

The ACT isolated reading complexity as a critical factor by analyzing the results of the 1.2 million high school seniors in 2005 who took the well known ACT college entrance test.

Based on that test, only 51 percent of students showed they were ready to handle the reading requirements of a typical first-year college course. The literacy of today's high school graduates has become an enormous concern for colleges and employers.

What differentiates students who are ready for college from the rest, the research shows, is an ability to comprehend sophisticated texts that may have several layers of meaning.

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NeuronFarm

www.neuronfarm.com:

D-Readers is a breakthrough in reading comprehension instruction for grades 3-8.
3D-Readers trains students in research-based metacognitive strategies by combining interactive visuals, automated text scoring, and immediate feedback in a Web-based product.

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Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style

Virginia Tufte:

In Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style, Virginia Tufte presents and comments on - more than a thousand excellent sentences chosen from the works of authors in the 20th and 21st centuries. The sentences come from an extensive search to identify some of the ways professional writers use the generous resources of the English language.

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WestEd: Bilingual vs. English Immersion in California

WestEd:

How should English learners be taught? What can state and local education leaders do to better support these students’ academic progress? Conclusions from a five-year evaluation have been released by a team of researchers from AIR and WestEd. The report, based on the study of 1.5 million California English learner and 3.5 million English-fluent and native-English speaking students, includes detailed findings and policy implications for education in California and nationwide. In 1998, California voters passed Proposition 227, mandating that California English learners be taught overwhelmingly in English through immersion programs not normally expected to exceed one year; bilingual instruction was to be permitted only through the granting of a special waiver. Has this been a good thing for students? The California legislature commissioned AIR and WestEd to conduct an exhaustive evaluation and provide some answers. Key findings include the following:

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 07:01 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Secrets of Graduating from College

Jay Matthews:

The first Toolbox provided the most powerful argument by far for getting more high school students into challenging courses, my favorite reporting topic. Using data from a study of 8,700 young Americans, it showed that students whose high schools had given them an intense academic experience -- such as a heavy load of English courses or advanced math or Advanced Placement -- were more likely to graduate from college. It has been frequently cited by high school principals, college admissions directors and anyone else who cared about giving more choices in life to more students, particularly those from low-income and minority families.

The new Toolbox is 193 pages [pdf] of dense statistics, obscure footnotes and a number of insightful and surprising assessments of the intricacies of getting a college degree in America. It confirms the lessons of the old Toolbox using a study of 8,900 students who were in 12th grade in 1992, 10 years after the first group. But it goes much further, prying open the American higher education system and revealing the choices that are most likely to get the least promising students a bachelor's degree.

Toward the end of the report, Adelman offers seven tips. I call them the "College Completion Cliff Notes." They are vintage Adelman, very un-government-report-like, so I will finish by just quoting them in full:

"1. Just because you say you will continue your education after high school and earn a college credential doesn't make it happen. Wishing doesn't do it; preparation does! So . . .

"2. Take the challenging course work in high school, and don't let anyone scare you away from it. Funny thing about it, but you learn what you study, so if you take up these challenges, your test scores will inevitably be better (if you are worried about that). If you cannot find the challenge in the school's offerings, point out where it is available on-line, and see if you can get it that way. There are very respectable Web sites offering full courses in precalculus, introductory physics, humanities, music theory, and computer programming, for example.

"3. Read like crazy! Expand your language space! Language is power! You will have a lot less trouble in understanding math problems, biology textbooks, or historical documents you locate on the Web. Chances are you won't be wasting precious credit hours on remedial courses in higher education.

"4. If you don't see it now, you will see it in higher education: The world has gone quantitative: business (obviously), geography, criminal justice, history, allied health fields -- a full range of disciplines and job tasks tells you why math requirements are not just some abstract school exercise. So come out of high school with more than Algebra 2, making sure to include math in your senior year course work, and when you enter higher education, put at least one college-level math course under your belt in the first year -- no matter what your eventual major.

"5. When you start to think seriously about postsecondary options, log on to college and community college Web sites and look not so much for what they tell you of how wonderful life is at Old Siwash, but what they show you of the kinds of assignments and examination questions given in major gateway courses you will probably take. If you do not see these indications of what to expect, push! Ask the schools for it! These assignments and questions are better than SAT or ACT preparation manuals in terms of what you need to complete degrees.

"6. See if your nearest community college has a dual-enrollment agreement with your school system, allowing you to take significant general education or introductory occupational courses for credit while you are still in high school. Use a summer term or part of your senior year to take advantage, and aim to enter higher education with at least six credits earned this way -- preferably more.

"7. You are ultimately responsible for success in education. You are the principal actor. The power is yours. Seize the day -- or lose it!"

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 10:02 PM | Comments (2) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

The Poetry Foundation

www.poetryfoundation.org:

Through the new Web site, the Poetry Foundation seeks to celebrate and share the best classical and contemporary poetry with a broad and diverse audience, from the devoted poetry reader to the casual one. At the core of the new site is an extensive archive of poetry, including poetry and essays from back issues of Poetry magazine (now in its 94th year of continuous publication). At launch the archive will include more than 3,000 poems by over 300 poets. All of the site's content, including the poetry archive, is accessible free of charge.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 07:21 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Deluxe Grant Boosts Reading Recovery

Mary Ellen LaChance:

Mention accelerated learning and you probably think of high school students taking Advanced Placement classes. But did you know that every year about 300 of the very lowest performing first graders participate in a special literacy intervention that provides opportunities for them to accelerate their literacy learning skills? After just 12-20 weeks in Reading Recovery the very lowest readers have the prospect of joining an average reading group!

Rapid changes in learning depend upon the teacher's ability to individually design a series of lessons to match the unique learning characteristics of each child. So teachers are continually confronted with the need to expand their expertise.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 07:10 AM | Comments (3) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Literacy Lumps into the Kill Zone

Tony Long:

Sadly, this devalues the thoughtful essayist and the sheer linguistic joy of the exposition. And the language dies a little more each day.

Then there's the havoc wrought on spelling and punctuation by all this casual communication. You can't lay all that at the feet of technology, of course. Grammar skills have been eroding in this country for years and that has a lot more to do with lax instruction than it does with e-mail or instant messaging. (Math is a different matter. No student should be allowed to bring a calculator into a math class. Ever.)

But couple those deficient grammar skills with the shorthand that's become prevalent in fast communication (not to mention all those irritating acronyms: LOL, WYSIWYG, IMHO, etc.) and you've just struck a match next to a can of gasoline. And people wonder why the tone of e-mail is so easily misunderstood.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 06:56 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

FORUM: Abuses and Uses of Curriculum in the Area of Language & Reading

Video | MP3 Audio

Rafael Gomez recently organized a Forum on: Abuses and Uses of Curriculum in the Area of Language & Reading: Participants included: Albert Watson: Project Bootstrape (sp?) Mark Seidenberg Dr. Paul Yvarra

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 09:50 PM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Latin lovers whoop it up at convention

Capital Times article published on Saturday, 1/28/06
by Susan Troller

When more than 400 enthusiastic young Latin lovers packed Great Hall of the Memorial Union this week, their whoops and cheers were loud enough to, well, awaken a dead language.

Hailing from both public and private high schools, the exuberant students were attending the annual Wisconsin Junior Classical League Convention, which began Thursday and ends today. The unlikely object of their enthusiasm was the study of Latin, which was, repeatedly, described as awesome, amazing and life-altering.

Carolyn Briggs, a Madison West junior who is president-elect of WJCL, said, "When I first went to the national convention, I fell in love. Not with a person, but with a language. Now my devotion to Latin, and to WJCL, borders on an obsession."

Briggs, dressed for the Spirit (pep rally) portion of the convention, was wearing boxer shorts emblazoned with the legend LATIN KICKS across the back.

Carolyn Hill, also from West, is a senior and outgoing WJCL historian. A beginning student in Greek, she said she intends to become a classics major.

"I really want to be a Latin teacher, and I think I'd like to teach in a public high school. Latin has been an amazing class, a great thing to study. When I was a kid, I wanted to be an archeologist, so maybe my interest is an extension of that.

"But it's conventions like these that really get you going," she added. "I mean, where else would you find people willing, or able, to sing 'Yellow Submarine' in Latin?"

Aaron and Caleb Burr, a senior and freshman brother duo who are part of a 33-student convention delegation from Edgewood High School, are also Latin fans. Aaron, who is taking Advanced Placement 4th year Latin, finds the ancient history compelling, and he loves a competition called Certamen that poses tough Latin questions in a Jeopardy-style format.

Caleb, a freshman in his first year of studying the language, confessed he wasn't very good, but that he liked the challenge. He keeps at it because, rugged or not, he enjoys it. "I also like the mythology," he said.

West is Madison's only public high school that still maintains a Latin program.

According to Gale Stone, West's Latin teacher and convention co-chair, there are about 100 Latin students in any given year at her school. A Latin teacher for 25 years, 18 of them at the high school level, she brought 67 of her students this year to the state convention.

In addition to the deafening Spirit competition on Friday morning and Certamen, events included a war machines competition, memorized and impromptu oratory, testing in Latin proficiency, a costume contest, a Roman banquet and an impromptu art competition. Part of the JCL creed promises "to hand on the torch of classical civilization in the modern world."

Eight public schools and seven private schools, including a home school association, were represented at the convention. "I try to make my classes fun, and a little different," Stone said, explaining the devotion her students show toward Latin.

"The language is extremely difficult, and it takes at least a couple of years for students to get much of a sense of proficiency. It's important for them to be able to find their own passion," she said.

"It's kind of like checking in at a hotel. There are lots of different rooms to capture the imagination, from mythology to military history to engineering feats to how they made their underwear," she laughed.

"Another great thing about Latin is that it's a great leveler of backgrounds for the students. Very few kids come in with an advantage. It doesn't matter whether you come from a professorial household, or a janitorial household. At the outset, it's unfamiliar to everyone," she said.

E-mail: stroller@madison.com
Published: January 28, 2006

Copyright 2006 The Capital Times

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Foreign Languages: iPod Phrase Book

Rambler:

Doing some traveling and want to speak the local language? Then you need Rambler – language phrase books designed for the iPod and made for the real world. Rambler is here to help make travel everything you want it to be. With over 900 words and phrases per language at your fingertips, mixing with the locals will be something you can look forward to.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 10:55 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Memorial Students Studying Mandarin

Sandy Cullen:

Memorial High School sophomore Christopher Tate didn't want to study the "regular" foreign languages such as Spanish or French.

"I wanted to take something new and different," said Christopher, 15. So, like a growing number of people nationwide, he is learning Mandarin Chinese instead.

"China is poised to become the world's other superpower," said Natasha Pierce, who is teaching Mandarin to about 70 students at Memorial, the only Madison school where the language is offered. "We need to be culturally and linguistically competent in Chinese."

Beginning in 2007, an Advanced Placement exam in Mandarin will be offered, providing students the added incentive of receiving college credit if they pass the test, she said.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 06:14 AM | Comments (1) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

This Writer's a Hoot

Carl Hiaasen:

Anybody who wants be a writer ought to first be a reader. Reading not only inspires you to write, it will teach you more about the craft than any teacher or college professor will be able to. Every good writer I know was hungry reader as a kid.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 09:06 PM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Mandarin Makes Inroads in U.S. Schools

Julia Silverman:

Twenty-four young faces in the kindergarten class at Woodstock Elementary School watch intently as their teacher holds up a construction-paper cutout of a large red circle and waits for them to identify the shape.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 10:29 PM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

"Why Slave-Era Barriers to Literacy Still Matter"

Brent Staples:

Literate black people were not immune to the mob violence and intensifying racism that greeted all African-Americans after the Civil War. Nevertheless, the ability to read and write gave them a vantage point on their circumstances and protected them from swindlers who regularly stripped illiterate people of land and other assets. For these families, literacy was a form of social capital that could be passed from one generation to the next. By contrast, nonliterate families were disproportionately vulnerable to the Jim Crow policies and social exploitation that often locked them out of the American mainstream for generations on end.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 10:02 PM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

2006-2007 MMSD Budget Comments

Jason Shepherd writing in the December 29, 2005 Isthmus:

• Superintendent Art Rainwater: says the "most frustrating" part of his job is knowing there are ways to boost achievement with more resources, but not being able to allocate them. Instead, the district must each year try to find ways to minimize the hurt.
• Board member Lawrie Kobza wants the board to review its strategic plan to ensure all students are being challenged with a rigorous curriculum.
• Carol Carstensen, the current Board President says the "heterogenous" groupings, central to the West controversy (English 10, 1 curriculum for all), will be among the most important curriculum issues for 2006.
• Ruth Robarts is closely watching an upcoming review of the district's health insurance plans and pushing to ensure that performance goals for Rainwater include targeted gains for student achievement.
• Johnny Winston says he'll continue to seek additional revenue streams, including selling district land.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 05:34 PM | Comments (1) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Raising Expectations in Watts

Lance Izumi:

One place where such heroic work is taking place is the Watts Learning Center (WLC) charter school, one of the most improved charter schools in California.

From 2000 to 2005, the WLC rose from a low test-score ranking to a level near the state’s proficiency target score of 800. The K-5 charter school was able to defy low expectations and accomplish this feat with a student population nearly all African American and low income. In an example of what the President called “the soft bigotry of low expectations,” these two factors are too often considered indicators of educational failure. WLC charter school proved defied that expectation.

Gene Fisher, founder and president of WLC, says that the school’s mission is to create a culture of learning and high expectations for students, parents, faculty and staff. He points out that, "The job of our teachers includes an emphasis on a proven curriculum while also reinforcing these high expectations – a belief that students can and will succeed."

The school uses the structured phonics-based Open Court reading program. WLC chose Open Court before the Los Angeles Unified School District adopted the same program. Open Court emphasizes continuous review and practice of already learned material. Sandra Fisher, the school’s executive director, says that it is important that the curriculum be structured because so many students lack structure in their lives.

• Great Schools Data on the Watts Learning Center
• Watts Learning Center

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 01:51 PM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

West Moves Ahead With English 10 Restructuring

West High School has decided to move ahead with their curriculum reduction plan. The school has posted a document explaining the changes on their website. The one concession that the school has made to parents is their decision not to require students to give up time at lunch in order to earn an honors designation. Instead, there will be an embedded honors component where students will be expected to complete more complex assignments and take more challenging exams. Support for struggling students will now occur in the classroom as well.

From the document:

The staff training necessary for full implementation of the tenth grade English program will include:
• The basics of how to differentiate in the classroom. What is really meant by differentiated instruction? How is it successfully implemented at the high school level?
• Best practice strategies for supporting struggling learners in the heterogeneous classroom.

Posted by Jeff Henriques at 09:44 AM | Comments (6) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Decrease in Literacy for College Graduates

The National Assessment of Adult Literacy, as reported by the New York Times, has declined significantly from 1992 to 2003.

In 1992, the percentage of college graduates scoring proficient in English was 40%; in 2003 the percentage had declined to 31%. Of those college graduates below proficient, 53% score intermediate, while 14% had only basic literacy. Astonishingly, 3% of college graduates had less than basic literacy in English.

Separating the data by ethnicity, Blacks increased statistically signficantly from 29% to 33%, Asian literacy increased significantly from 45% to 54%, but Hispanic literacy declined significantly from 33% to 27% in intermediate/proficient, while below basic literacy increased significantly from 35% to 44%.

The NAAL study includes sampling of 19,000 people above age 16.

Of course, non-English literacy is not the same as illiteracy, so the study should be interpreted with this distinction in mind.

Posted by Larry Winkler at 09:08 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due: A Look at the Educational Histories of the 29 West HS National Merit Semi-Finalists

Earlier this semester, 60 MMSD students -- including 29 from West HS -- were named 2006 National Merit Semifinalists. In a 10/12/05 press release, MMSD Superintendent Art Rainwater said, "I am proud of the many staff members who taught and guided these students all the way from elementary school, and of this district's overall guidance and focus that has led to these successes."

A closer examination of the facts, however, reveals that only 12 (41%) of West High School's 29 National Merit Semifinalists attended the Madison public schools continuously from first grade on (meaning that 59% received some portion of their K-8 schooling in either private schools or non-MMSD public schools). Here's the raw data:

NMSF #1: Wingra K-5th; Hamilton

NMSF #2: Franklin-Randall K-5th; Wright for 6th; Hamilton 7th-8th

NMSF #3: Midvale-Lincoln, K-5th; Cherokee

NMSF #4: Denver public schools (magnet Montessori school) K-6th; Hamilton 7th-8th

NMSF #5: New Orleans parochial school K-8th; New Orleans public high school through 11th

NMSF #6: Libertyville, IL, public schools ("extremely rigorous") through first semester 10th

NMSF #7: Franklin-Randall, K-5th; Hamilton

NMSF #8: Van Hise, K-5th; Hamilton

NMSF #9: Van Hise, K-5th; Hamilton

NMSF #10: Starkville, MS, public schools K-8th

NMSF #11: Japanese school for K; Glenn Stephens 1st-4th; Van Hise for 5th; Hamilton

NMSF #12: Franklin-Randall, K-5th; Hamilton

NMSF #13: Madison Central Montessori through 3rd; Shorewood 3rd-5th; Hamilton

NMSF #14: Lincoln-Midvale through 4th; Eagle 5th-8th

NMSF #15: Eagle K-8th

NMSF #16: MMSD through 9th; home schooled beginning in 10th

NMSF #17: Leopold though 4th; Eagle 5th-8th

NMSF #18: Lapham K-2nd; Randall 3rd-5th; Hamilton

NMSF #19: California private school through 5th; Hamilton

NMSF #20: Midvale and Van Hise; Hamilton

NMSF #21: Seattle public schools (TAG pullout program) through 7th; Hamilton for 8th

NMSF #22: Unknown private school K-1st; Eagle 2nd-8th

NMSF #23: Lincoln-Midvale K-5th; Cherokee

NMSF #24: Madison Central Montessori through 4th; Eagle 5th-8th

NMSF #25: Shorewood K-5th; Hamilton

NMSF #26: Queen of Peace through 5th; Hamilton

NMSF #27: West Middleton through 4th; Eagle 5th-8th

NMSF #28: Montessori pre-K through 2nd; Shorewood 4th-5th; Eagle 5th-8th

NMSF #29: Shorewood K-5th; Hamilton

• Elementary school (K-5) history: 31% attended private school for three or more years (an additional 21% attended non-MMSD public schools for three or more years -- total: 52%).
  
  
• Middle school (6-8) history: 28% attended private school for two or more years (an additional 14% attended non-MMSD public schools for two or more years -- total: 42%).
  
  
• K-8 schooling history: 28% attended private school for five or more of their K-8 school years (an additional 17% attended non-MMSD public schools for five or more of their K-8 school years -- total: 45%)

Descriptive data like these are certainly interesting, though they often raise more questions than they answer. And of course, they don't prove anything. Nevertheless, with 45% of the West HS National Merit Semifinalist sample attending non-MMSD schools for over half of their K-8 years, it is recommended that the District temper its sense of pride in and ownership of these very accomplished students.

Many thanks to each of these fine young people for speaking with us on the telephone. Congratulations and good luck to each and every one of them!

Posted by Laurie Frost at 09:55 AM | Comments (23) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Oxford English Dictionary Newsletter

Some interesting tools online at the OED:

• BBC Wordhunt
• News
• Tracking down tofu

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 09:00 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Steve Rosenblum on West's Planned English 10: Same Curriculum for All

Steve Rosenblum, writing to Carol Carstensen:

Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2005 15:07:45 -0600
To: Carol Carstensen ,"Laurie A. Frost" From: Steven Rosenblum Subject: Re: West English
Cc: raihala@charter.net, jedwards2@wisc.edu, bier@engr.wisc.edu, jlopez@madison.k12.wi.us, wkeys@madison.k12.wi.us, svang7@madison.k12.wi.us, rrobarts@madison.k12.wi.us, jwinstonjr@madison.k12.wi.us, lkobza@madison.k12.wi.us

Carol,

Thank you for the response. I am somewhat confused however regarding your statement concerning the Board's role. Maybe you could define what is included under 'set policy' and what is excluded. I am aware of the situations you reference regarding the BOE and what some may consider poor decisions on subject matter and censorship. I also believe the public was able to vote boards out when the decisions made do not reflect community opinion. I thought our BOE was responsible to control the Administration's decisions regarding just these type of issues.

With a child entering West next year, I am personally very concerned with what I perceive is a reduction in education quality at West. We see this in English, in the elimination of Advanced Placement Courses, through the homogenization of class make-up which ignores student achievement and motivation. In addition, I really do not feel we can allow much time to resolve these issues, especially when decisions can be made in closed door sessions and without supporting data.

Personally I am confused how we can justify diluting content and rigor in the academic aspects of school while allowing stratification by ability and motivation in sports like Basketball and Soccer. Why is it that we allow our children to be stigmatized by being placed in a lower achieving section of the basketball team or not allowing them to participate at all due to their lower level basketball abilities but insist that everyone take the same English content. The system, as it is now evolving, encourages mediocrity and in no way reflects the world these people live in outside of school.

If nothing else, I hope this note indicates how dissatisfied this one parent of three school age children is with the direction of Madison schools.

Steven Rosenblum

#############################

At 2:18 PM -0600 12/2/05, Carol Carstensen wrote:
Laurie:
Thank you for your email. I have been following the discussion on the proposed changes to English 10 at West. I know that there have been various conversations between West High staff and parents and downtown administrators. I believe that a number of the concerns raised by parents are being given serious consideration. I really think you need to allow some time here.

I do see a broader policy issue of the question of heterogeneous grouping. Since this is really in the area of the Performance and Achievement Committee, I will talk with Shwaw Vang about having a meeting on this topic. Given the current schedule of Board meetings it looks as if January is the earliest we can have a meeting on this.

It is important to remember that the Boardís role is to set policy not to get involved in curriculum decisions. Just to remind you of some of the pitfalls of having politicians make curriculum decisions: there is the national controversy over the teaching of evolution and the example of the Dover PA board; there is also the current push to require the use of abstinence only programs; and lastly various attempts to censor what books are used in classrooms.
Carol

P.S. If you decide to forward or post this, please use the entire response.

#################################

At 08:32 AM 12/2/2005 -0600, you wrote:
Dear Carol,

I am writing to request that you put a discussion of the plans for English 10 at West HS (and the question of whether or not West's English 9 course has been appropriately evaluated, and whether or not the results of any evaluation support the implementation of English 10) on the agenda of a BOE meeting as soon as possible.

I believe it is time for the BOE to step in and take seriously its responsibility to students by insisting that the West administration make a sound, empirically-based decision.

Many thanks,
Laurie

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 10:00 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Carol Carstensen on West's Planned English 10 Single Curriculum for All

Laurie:

Thank you for your email. I have been following the discussion on the proposed changes to English 10 at West. I know that there have been various conversations between West High staff and parents and downtown administrators. I believe that a number of the concerns raised by parents are being given serious consideration. I really think you need to allow some time here.

I do see a broader policy issue of the question of heterogeneous grouping. Since this is really in the area of the Performance and Achievement Committee, I will talk with Shwaw Vang about having a meeting on this topic. Given the current schedule of Board meetings it looks as if January is the earliest we can have a meeting on this.

It is important to remember that the Board’s role is to set policy not to get involved in curriculum decisions. Just to remind you of some of the pitfalls of having politicians make curriculum decisions: there is the national controversy over the teaching of evolution and the example of the Dover PA board; there is also the current push to require the use of abstinence only programs; and lastly various attempts to censor what books are used in classrooms.

Carol

P.S. If you decide to forward or post this, please use the entire response.
.............

At 08:32 AM 12/2/2005 -0600, you wrote:

Dear Carol,

I am writing to request that you put a discussion of the plans for English 10 at West HS (and the question of whether or not West's English 9 course has been appropriately evaluated, and whether or not the results of any evaluation support the implementation of English 10) on the agenda of a BOE meeting as soon as possible.

I believe it is time for the BOE to step in and take seriously its responsibility to students by insisting that the West administration make a sound, empirically-based decision.

Many thanks,
Laurie

Posted by Laurie Frost at 12:05 PM | Comments (3) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

West HS English 9 and 10: Show us the data!

Here is a synopsis of the English 10 situation at West HS.

Currently -- having failed to receive any reply from BOE Performance and Achievement Committee Chair Shwaw Vang to our request that he investigate this matter and provide an opportunity for public discussion -- we are trying to get BOE President Carol Carstensen to put a discussion of the English 10 proposal (and the apparent lack of data supporting its implementation) on the agenda for a BOE meeting.  Aside from the fact that there is serious doubt that the course, as proposed, will meet the educational needs of the high and low end students, it is clear we are witnessing yet another example of school officials making radical curricular changes without empirical evidence that they will work and without open, honest and respectful dialogue with the community.

As the bumper sticker says, "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention!"

• 11/7/2005: West PTSO meeting, where the plans for English 10 were first introduced. A videotape of the English 10 portion of the meeting (along with additional background information) may be found here.
  
  
• 11/9/2005: After hearing from two independent sources who attended the 11/8 West faculty meeting that West Principal Ed Holmes represented the parents who attended the previous night's PTSO meeting as very supportive of the English 10 proposal, I write Mr. Holmes a forceful, clarifying letter.
  
  
• 11/9/2005: I request a copy of the report written by SLC Evaluator Bruce King that someone mentioned at the 11/7 PTSO meeting. I am told by West Principal Ed Holmes that the report is a "confidential" and a "draft."
  
  
• 11/14/2005: After several days of investigation and writing to the proper District authorities, I obtain a copy of the SLC report from MMSD Attorney Clarence Sherrod. http://www.schoolinfosystem.org/archives/2005/11/evaluation_of_t.php
  
  
• 11/14/2005: I re-send to West Principal Ed Holmes the list of questions that several of us submitted to him and West English Department Chair Keesia Hyzer before the 11/7 PTSO meeting because most of the questions were not answered at the meeting. (Note: I have yet to receive a reply and we have yet to receive answers, studies or data.)
  
  
• 11/18/2005: Several West HS attendance area parents meet with Assistant Superintendent for Secondary Schools Pam Nash. We discuss many important issues pertaining to the English 10 plan and request data and empirical studies that support what is being done at West.
  
  
• 11/20/2005: I send Pam Nash a follow-up email of thanks, reinforcing our request for West and MMSD data -- as well as empirical studies -- that support the implementation of English 10 and the move towards heterogeneous classes in our middle and high schools. I include the list of talking points that our group generated before our meeting with her because we did not get to all of them in our meeting. (Note: I have yet to receive a reply and we have yet to receive answers, studies or data.)
  
  
• 11/21/2005: I pen a request to BOE Performance and Achievement Committee Chair Shwaw Vang (copying several other District officials), asking that he obtain the data that forms the basis for a couple of important points in Bruce King's SLC report, points regarding the apparent failure of English 9 to impact the achievement gap. Several others sign the request. We ask that the data be made public and that the P& A Committee hold a public discussion of the data. Knowing that Mr. Vang doesn't "do" email, I hand-deliver a copy of my request to him, along with a hard copy of the SLC report. (Note: I have yet to receive a reply from Mr. Vang.)
  
  
• 11/28/2005: I write a follow-up email to Mr. Vang and his committee members (Ruth Robarts and Bill Keys), asking about the status of our request and stressing the time urgency of the situation. (Note: I have yet to receive a reply from Mr. Vang.
  
  
• 11/28/2005: I write a follow-up email to Pam Nash, urgently requesting an update on the situation at West. (Note: I have yet to receive a reply from Ms. Nash.)
  
  
• 11/29/2005: I leave a message on Mr. Vang's answering machine asking for a status report on our request. (Note: I have yet to receive a reply from Mr. Vang.)
  
  
• 11/30/2005: I receive an email from Bill Keys, essentially a forward of a brief message from Art Rainwater.
  
  
• 11/30/2005: I write back to Bill, copying Art Rainwater, Pam Nash, and Mary Gulbrandsen.
  
  
• 12/02/2005: I write an email to Madison Board of Education President Carol Carstensen that the Board discuss plans for English 10 at West HS (and the question of whether or not West's English 9 course has been appropriately evaluated, and whether or not the results of any evaluation support the implementation of English 10) on the agenda of a BOE meeting as soon as possible.
  
  

Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2005 08:15:05 -0600 To: eholmes@madison.k12.wi.us From: "Laurie A. Frost" Subject: English at West HS Cc: pnash@madison.k12.wi.us,arainwater@madison.k12.wi.us,wkeys@madison.k12.wi.us,lkobza@boardmanlawfirm.com,robarts@execpc.com,ccarstensen@madison.k12.wi.us,jlopez@madison.k12.wi.us,svang7@madison.k12.wi.us,jwinstonjr@madison.k12.wi.us

Dear Ed,

I have it on very good authority that you misrepresented Monday night's PTSO meeting at your full faculty meeting yesterday. It is not clear if this was a matter of positive spin, selective inattention, or willful calculation. Yes, parents were calm, well-behaved and non-combative, and they tried to compliment the good they saw in the proposed curriculum. There are some great books on the list (though someone has since pointed out that most are by male authors), plus we appreciate the goal of integrating the writing assignments with the literature being read. As I see it, though, our good behavior speaks to our respectfulness and willingness to collaborate, not to our support of the plan as presented.

More specifically, I would estimate that approximately 80%, possibly more, of the parent comments Monday night were not positive and accepting of the plans for English 10 as they currently stand. Almost every parent who spoke expressed concern about how the plan does not meet the needs of the students of high ability and enthusiasm in language arts. There was also concern that the curriculum is not a good match for students who struggle with reading. Parents were very critical of the details of the proposed honors designation and pessimistic about its effectiveness and success. You were asked several times to consider creating an honors section of English 10 in each SLC. (Same for English 9 and Accelerated Biology.) Why? Because, as parents pointed out, most any literary work can be taught at a wide range of levels, depending on the teacher and the students. Put another way, a student's experience of rigor, high expectation and intellectual stimulation in a class depends on the level, quality, depth and pace of the conversation in the room; and that, in turn, depends on who is in the room. There are very real limits on the number of grade levels across which even a masterful teacher can teach. It is also unfair to ask students who simply want to have their educational needs met to give up two lunch periods per week, along with the opportunity to participate in school clubs and other activities. That would not be necessary if the appropriate level of rigor were provided in their classroom experience.

Please stop the plans to implement the English 10 core as it was presented on Monday night until there has been a thoroughgoing, community-wide discussion about it and until you provide hard data -- from West and from the research literature -- that support it. (Note: this includes the recent report written by the SLC evaluator, Bruce King.) Otherwise, you risk alienating a large segment of the West community and hastening the "bright flight" that has already begun in our attendance area. (Did you know that almost one-third of the approximately 70 parents who attended the meeting were parents of elementary and middle school students in the West attendance area who are watching these developments very closely?)

Laurie Frost

Here is a link to a more complete report on what transpired at the West PTSO meeting on 11/7:

http://www.schoolinfosystem.org/archives/2005/11/report_from_wes.php

A videotape of the portion of the meeting dealing with the English 10 proposal will posted on schoolinfosystem asap.

11/9/2005: I request a copy of the report written by SLC Evaluator Bruce King that someone mentioned at the 11/7 PTSO meeting. I am told by West Principal Ed Holmes that the report is a "confidential" and a "draft."

Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2005 09:49:28 -0600
To: eholmes@madison.k12.wi.us,hlott@madison.k12.wi.us
From: TAG Parents
Subject: SLC report request
Cc: arainwater@madison.k12.wi.us,pnash@madison.k12.wi.us,csherrod@madison.k12.wi.us

This is a formal request for a copy (electronic, if possible, perhaps as an attachment) of SLC evaluator Bruce King's recent report on the progress of the SLC initiative at West HS.

Please send this report as soon as possible, as time is of the essence. If it is easier for you, I would be happy to pick up a hard copy in the West HS office. Just let me know by email or phone call (238-6375) and I will drop by.

Thank you.

Respectfully,

Laurie Frost

_____________________________________________
Madison TAG Parents
Email: tagparents@yahoogroups.com
URL: http://tagparents.org

###
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Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2005 13:42:52 -0600
From: "Ed Holmes"
To: "Heather Lott" ,
Cc: "Art Rainwater" ,
"Clarence Sherrod" ,
"Pam Nash"
Subject: Re: SLC report request
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Dear TAG Parents,

The document you have requested is a confidential draft that was sent
to me by our Smaller Learning Communities Grant Evaluator, Bruce King.
Clearly the front cover of the document says DRAFT and CONFIDENTIAL. I
want to be clear that it is Bruce King who has requested that this
information be kept confidential and that I will be honoring his
request.

Bruce King is currently working on an Executive Summary that will
outline his findings regarding establishment of the 10th Grade English
course at West. That document will be distributed to anyone interested
in reviewing his evaluative statement regarding the merits of the
process and the plans for implementation of the course.

As soon as I recieve the aforementioned document I will be happy to
pass it on to you.

Thank you for your ongoing interest in this important curriculum review
process.

Ed Holmes, Principal
West High School

_____________________________________________
Madison TAG Parents
Email: tagparents@yahoogroups.com
URL: http://tagparents.org

11/14/2005: After several days of investigation and writing to the proper District authorities, I obtain a copy of the SLC report from MMSD Attorney Clarence Sherrod. http://www.schoolinfosystem.org/archives/2005/11/evaluation_of_t.php

11/14/2005: I re-send to West Principal Ed Holmes the list of questions that several of us submitted to him and West English Department Chair Keesia Hyzer before the 11/7 PTSO meeting because most of the questions were not answered at the meeting. (Note: I have yet to receive a reply and we have yet to receive answers, studies or data.)

Note: These questions were first sent on 11/3 -- several days before the PTSO meeting -- and again on 11/14. "Kathy" is West PTSO President Kathy Riddiough.

Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 09:38:15 -0600
To: eholmes@madison.k12.wi.us,ricciridd@tds.net
From: "Laurie A. Frost"
Subject: Questions for 11/7 PTSO meeting
Cc: pnash@madison.k12.wi.us

Hello, Kathy and Ed. Below are the questions a group of us submitted before last week's PTSO meeting. It seems to us that Questions 5, 8, 13 and 15 were answered, Question 10 was addressed by parents only (and constituted the bulk of the Q and A), but the rest were not addressed at all. Many of the parents who were present at the meeting would appreciate having the answers to the remaining questions asap.

We are especially interested in seeing West HS data that indicate the need for the structural/curricular change being proposed and West HS data and empirical studies from the education literature that indicate the likely success of the proposed change in addressing the problem. Please include, in particular, the studies you believe best indicate the effectiveness of heterogeneous grouping for educating well the full range of high school students.

We would also like to know what will be happening -- and when (there is some urgency, after all) -- to continue the dialogue that has only barely begun by the West administration and the parents of the children who will be affected by this change.

Thanks for your timely attention to this matter.

Respectfully,
Laurie Frost

I. Questions about 10th grade English

1) What are the West HS data that indicate there is a problem with the current system for 10th grade English?

2) What are the data that suggest the solution being proposed (i.e., a standardized, homogeneous curriculum delivered in completely heterogeneous classes) will fix the problem? (Are there empirical studies you can tell us about?)

3) What are the data that indicate all students' educational needs will be well served by the proposed solution? (Again, are there empirical studies you can tell us about?)

4) What are the data that indicate no students will be harmed or poorly served by the proposed solution? (And again -- empirical studies?)

5) If the 10th grade English core is implemented, will some English electives be dropped from the course offerings? If so, which ones?

6) Will advanced students be allowed to "test out" or be "teacher-recommended out" of the 10th grade English core? If so, when would this happen? When they register for their 10th grade classes? At the end of 9th grade? At the beginning of 10th grade? In between semesters in 10th grade? Some or all of these times?

7) Will you extend this option to advanced 9th graders and allow them to "test out" or be "teacher-recommended out" of 9th grade English? (It is our understanding that this used to be allowed.)

8) Would you consider keeping the current system in place and adding the new curriculum as an additional elective for those students for whom it is a good educational match?

9) Will the grant be jeopardized or lost if you do not implement a homogeneous 10th grade English core? (If you are not sure, would you be willing to check into it and get back to us?)

10) We fear that the plan to offer an honors designation in 10th grade English that requires two lunchtime meetings per week is likely doomed to failure for the following reasons: a) it seems highly unlikely that students who have just endured a year of required "freshman resource time" during their lunch hour will be willing to give up two-fifths of their hard-earned midday freedom as sophomores; b) the plan puts having an honors distinction (which is really not the point -- having an appropriately challenging curriculum and the opportunity to learn with similar-ability peers is the point) in direct competition with participation in clubs and other activities that meet during lunchtime; c) the plan forces students to choose between more academics and social time or "down" time. Because so many reasons for students not to choose the honors option are being built into the plan, we feel the plan is likely to fail and that you will then use that as justification for discontinuing the option due to "lack of interest." Would you please comment on our concerns? What are your thoughts about the potential success or failure of the proposed honors designation, as it is currently defined?

11) Who conceived of the proposal to restructure sophomore English by eliminating electives and implementing a standardized curriculum to be delivered in heterogeneous classrooms (i.e., what are their names, please)?

12) Were District TAG staff included or consulted in the development of this proposal?

13) Who is developing the 10th grade English core curriculum (again, what are their names, please)?

14) Were District TAG staff included or consulted in the development of the new curriculum?

15) What is the process the group is using to develop the English 10 core curriculum?

II. General -- but nevertheless relevant -- questions

16) Would you please explain to us the difference between "tracking" and "flexible ability grouping"?

17) Would you please share with us your understanding of the research on ability grouping?

III. SLC questions

18) What were the West HS data that were used to justify the need for a change this drastic at West?

19) What were the data and studies that were used to justify the selection of this particular smaller high schools model for West?

20) Whose idea was the SLC initiative originally? That is, what is the name of the person who conceived of the idea in the very beginning?

21) What are the specific outcome measures that are being used to assess the impact of the SLC initiative?

_____________________________________________
Madison TAG Parents
Email: tagparents@yahoogroups.com
URL: http://tagparents.org

11/18/2005: Several West HS attendance area parents meet with Assistant Superintendent for Secondary Schools Pam Nash. We discuss many important issues pertaining to the English 10 plan and request data and empirical studies that support what is being done at West.

11/20/2005: I send Pam Nash a follow-up email of thanks, reinforcing our request for West and MMSD data -- as well as empirical studies -- that support the implementation of English 10 and the move towards heterogeneous classes in our middle and high schools. I include the list of talking points that our group generated before our meeting with her because we did not get to all of them in our meeting. (Note: I have yet to receive a reply and we have yet to receive answers, studies or data.)

Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 23:10:50 -0600
To: pnash@madison.k12.wi.us
From: "Laurie A. Frost"
Subject: thanks, and more ...

Dear Pam,

Thanks so much for taking the time to meet with us on Friday to discuss the matter of English 10 and related issues at West HS. We greatly appreciated your time, your honesty, your patience and your perspective. We would very much like to continue the dialogue with you as things unfold at West in the coming weeks and months. I am happy to continue as your contact or "point person" for the group.

As a follow-up to our meeting, I cannot overstate parents' interest in seeing both West HS data and empirical studies from the education literature that support the District's increasing use of a homogeneous curriculum delivered in completely heterogeneous classrooms at both the middle and high school level. We want to know more about the research base that the Administration is using as the empirical foundation for this reform, as well as about the evidence from within the MMSD that attests to its effectiveness for all students.

We came on Friday with several talking points, but didn't get to all of them. I've pasted in the entire list below. If you have thoughts to share about any of the ones that didn't come up in our meeting, please feel free to respond.

Again, thanks so much for taking the time to start a dialogue with us.

Sincerely,

Laurie

Talking points for 11/18 meeting with Pam Nash

1. The SLC report makes it clear that English 9 – a standardized curriculum delivered in completely heterogeneous classes – hasn’t had the desired effect on the achievement gap at West, on the English 9 failure rates for certain groups of West students, or on the participation rates in the more challenging English electives of those same students. It thus makes no sense to us to expand the approach into 10th grade English. The first order of business should be to understand why English 9 is not working as hoped, and fix it.

2. The English 10 course – as currently planned – is a set up for failure for struggling and low achieving students for whom the reading and writing demands will likely be too great. It is also not fair to expect high performing and highly motivated students to get their need for challenge met during the lunch hour and through extra independent work. Students in honors classes report that the single most important feature of those classes for them is the high level of discussion, a result of who is in the class. Thus, students at the upper and lower most ends of the performance distribution will not be well served by this plan.

3. One way to modify the plan would be to have one honors section and one skills and enrichment section in each of the four SLC’s. Students would self-select into these special sections of English 10 and – in the honors sections – would have to maintain adequate performance in order to remain in the section. The special sections would be less exclusive than, for example, the single section of Accelerated Biology at West because four sections would provide significantly more access for a wider variety of interested students. According to the SLC report, having special sections like this in each SLC is not inconsistent with the SLC model.

4. Such a modified plan would also bring West in line with Madison’s other high schools. East HS, for example, has TAG, AcaMo and regular classes in English, science, and social studies, as well as several different levels of math.

5. Increasing the number of AP classes at West would address another important disparity between our high schools, one that affects the educational opportunities for West’s high performing students. (We hope the AP grant that the MMSD has just received, along with several other Wisconsin school districts, will be used to do this.)

6. In general, the significant differences across our four high schools with regard to how and how well the learning needs of the high performing students are met is of great concern to us. We are concerned about the “bright flight” that is occurring, from one attendance area to another and to neighboring districts.

7. Middleton HS was just named a Blue Ribbon School for its academic excellence by the U.S. Department of Education, one of only two in the state. Middleton HS offers a diversified curriculum in each content area and thus appropriate educational opportunities for students with widely varying interests, abilities, and career aspirations. It seems to us that Middleton understands that “equal” and “equitable” are not the same thing; that equal educational opportunity and heterogeneous grouping are not synonymous.

8. What are the major empirical studies upon which the District’s move towards completely heterogeneous classrooms at both the middle and high school levels is based?

9. Are you aware of the District’s dropout data for the second half of the 1990's? The data indicate that 27% of the dropouts for that period had a history of high academic achievement and that over half of this high achieving group of dropouts were poor and over 40% of them were minority students. Of the four high schools, West had the largest percentage of formerly high achieving dropouts. How do you understand those data? (I will bring hard copies.)

10. Can you provide us with an update on the plans for Accelerated Biology at West next year?

11. Is there any update since the 11/7 PTSO meeting we should know about?

12. A point about the process -- the lack of partnership -- the stonewalling -- which has become part of the problem. In contrast to the way things have unfolded at West, East had a community-wide meeting last week, at the beginning of their process, and has set up a task force to review high end curriculum.

13. Would we ever keep a talented 9th grade basketball player off of the varsity team? No. We'd celebrate his ability and be excited about having him play varsity for four years. And we wouldn't worry about hurting the feelings or self-esteem of any less capable or motivated students. Why is this attitude so acceptable in sports, but not in academics?

14. We would like to see honors/accelerated/more rigorous classes throughout the curriculum -- e.g., English 9, Accelerated Biology, social studies, etc. Why not one honors section per SLC?

15. What do the data show regarding how (matched samples of) students from Wright, Hamilton and Cherokee do at West? We think much could be learned by taking a look and seeing if there are differences.

Laurie A. Frost, Ph.D.
Isthmus Psychotherapy & Psychiatry
222 South Bedford Street
Madison, WI 53703
(608) 256-6570

11/21/2005: I pen a request to BOE Performance and Achievement Committee Chair Shwaw Vang (copying several other District officials), asking that he obtain the data that forms the basis for a couple of important points in Bruce King's SLC report, points regarding the apparent failure of English 9 to impact the achievement gap. Several others sign the request. We ask that the data be made public and that the P& A Committee hold a public discussion of the data. Knowing that Mr. Vang doesn't "do" email, I hand-deliver a copy of my request to him, along with a hard copy of the SLC report. (Note: I have yet to receive a reply from Mr. Vang.)

Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 20:02:40 -0600
To: svang7@madison.k12.wi.us
From: "Laurie A. Frost"
Subject: West HS SLC report -- request for examination and public discussion of 9th grade English data
Cc: robarts@execpc.com,wkeys@madison.k12.wi.us,jwinstonjr@madison.k12.wi.us,ccarstensen@madison.k12.wi.us,jlopez@madison.k12.wi.us,lkobza@boardmanlawfirm.com,arainwater@madison.k12.wi.us,pnash@madison.k12.wi.us,talkingoutofschool@isthmus.com,edit@isthmus.com

Dear Shwaw,

We are writing to you in your capacity as Chair of the BOE Performance and Achievement Committee to ask that you address a critical situation currently unfolding at West High School.

Enclosed you will find a copy of a report entitled "Evaluation of the SLC Project at West High School," written by SLC Evaluator Bruce King and dated November 2, 2005. The report focuses on the West administration's plans to overhaul 10th grade English.

For many years West sophomores -- like West juniors and seniors -- have chosen their English courses from an impressive list of electives that range in content and difficulty level. According to the report, the overarching reason for changing the existing system for 10th grade English is the concern that the elective structure contributes to unequal educational opportunities across different student groups. Specifically, there is concern that some groups of students do not sign up for the more rigorous, higher level electives. There is also concern that some West students complete their English credits without taking any literature courses. In essence, the proposal makes 10th grade English a lot like English 9 -- a standardized curriculum delivered in heterogeneous classes. The thing is, English 9 has not had the desired effect on these indicators of student achievement.

When you read the report, you will discover that English 9 -- which has been in place at West for several years -- has not done much to close the gap in achievement in English among West students. Thus the report recommends that "ongoing critical reflection and analysis of both the 9th and 10th grade English courses [is] needed [in order to] address ... concerns [such as] the failure rate for 9th grade English and which students are failing [because] it is not clear if a common 9th grade course has helped close the achievement gap" (emphasis added).

The report also states that "in addition, an action research group might be formed to evaluate the 9th grade course, including levels of expectations and differentiation, failure rates by student groups, and the extent to which it has helped or hindered students to take challenging English courses in subsequent years. Apparently, it hasn't helped some groups of students that much (emphasis added). Why? What needs to be changed so it does, and so the 10th grade course does, as well?"

In a word, we find it unconscionable to think that the West administration would expand a program into the 10th grade that has so clearly failed to achieve its objectives in the 9th grade. We can't help but suspect that a look at the hard data would convince any reasonable person that the appropriate and responsible course of action, at this juncture, would be to figure out why English 9 hasn't worked and fix it before making any changes to the 10th grade curriculum.

As Chair of the Performance and Achievement Committee, would you please take responsibility for obtaining from the MMSD Research and Evaluation Department the 9th grade data that goes along with the above statements from the report? Would you also please make these data public and schedule a public discussion of them at a Performance and Achievement Committee meeting?

We must stress to you the time urgency of this matter. At the November 7 West PTSO meeting -- when the West administration and English Department first introduced the proposal for English 10 -- it was mentioned that the West course catalogue is due at the printer in December. This leaves very little time for the public discussion that should have been an essential element of this curriculum change process. Consequently, we ask that you please obtain the data and hold a public discussion of them immediately.

Many thanks for your prompt attention to this urgent matter.

Respectfully,

Laurie Frost, Jeff Henriques, Larry Winkler, Jim Zellmer, Joan Knoebel, Michael Cullenward, Ed Blume, Kathy Riddiough, Jane Doughty, Janet Mertz, Stephanie Stetson, Nancy Zellmer, Jan Edwards, and Don Severson

11/28/2005: I write a follow-up email to Mr. Vang and his committee members (Ruth Robarts and Bill Keys), asking about the status of our request and stressing the time urgency of the situation. (Note: I have yet to receive a reply from Mr. Vang.)

Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 21:23:18 -0600
To: svang7@madison.k12.wi.us,wkeys@madison.k12.wi.us,robarts@execpc.com
From: "Laurie A. Frost"
Subject: West HS English 9 data request

Dear Shwaw, Bill and Ruth --

We are wondering about the status of our 11/21 request that the Performance and Achievement Committee obtain the West HS English 9 data that goes along with the comments in the text of Bruce King's report regarding the course's failure to impact the student achievement gap at West; make the data public; and hold a Performance and Achievement Committee meeting to discuss it?

The update from our end is that we have not heard from Pam Nash since our 11/18 meeting with her; we still have not heard from Ed Holmes about the answers to those questions we posed to him before the 11/7 PTSO meeting, but that were not answered at the meeting; SLC Evaluator Bruce King held two parent focus groups tonight; there is a 20-minute English Department meeting on Wednesday to discuss which English electives will be discontinued; and we understand English Department Chair Keesia Hyzer is working on an English 10 course catalog description.

Please, time is of the essence. Please get back to us. Please get those data. And please slow down the process that is unfolding at West, even as I write this email.

Laurie

P.S. I heard about yet another West family looking to move further west today.

11/28/2005: I write a follow-up email to Pam Nash, urgently requesting an update on the situation at West. (Note: I have yet to receive a reply from Ms. Nash.)

Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 21:33:42 -0600
To: pnash@madison.k12.wi.us
From: "Laurie A. Frost"
Subject: update?

Pam,

Is there anything to report on the English 10 situation at West? Any data? Any articles? Any news about follow-up from the West administration or with you?

Parents are getting increasingly agitated again. Although there were two one-hour focus groups held this evening, it's not clear they were anything more than an opportunity for parents to say their piece -- i.e., they felt much like the 11/7 PTSO meeting, in terms of not having any real impact on the process.

That's in part because we understand that the English Department is having a 20-minute meeting on Wednesday to discuss which electives will be discontinued, and that Keesia Hyzer (English Department chair) is working up an English 10 course catalog description. It appears that everything is proceeding as planned, as if parents had never said a word, as if the SLC report told a glowing success story about English 9.

What's going on?

Please get back to us asap.

Thanks,
Laurie

11/29/2005: I leave a message on Mr. Vang's answering machine asking for a status report on our request. (Note: I have yet to receive a reply from Mr. Vang.)

11/30/2005: I receive an email from Bill Keys, essentially a forward of a brief message from Art Rainwater.

X-Apparently-To: lauriefrost@ameritech.net via 68.142.199.141; Wed, 30 Nov 2005 05:49:04 -0800
X-Originating-IP: [199.197.64.10]
Authentication-Results: mta819.mail.scd.yahoo.com
from=madison.k12.wi.us; domainkeys=neutral (no sig)
X-Originating-IP: [199.197.64.10]
X-Sender: wkeys@mail.madison.k12.wi.us
X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1
Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 07:46:39 -0600
To: "Laurie A. Frost"
From: Bill Keys
Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: Fwd: West HS English 9 data request
Cc: Art Rainwater
X-Spam-Flag: Unchecked
X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.41

Laurie,
This is what I intended to send: Art's response, in bold and italics.
Bill
Mary G, Pam and I met with Bruce King today. Bruce was very clear with us that his report did not say that the ninth grade English class had failed. What he actually said in the report was there was no data to make any kind of judgement about the success of the course. They would need to talk to Bruce about what data he has. My understanding was that he has none.
Art

11/30/2005: I write back to Bill, copying Art Rainwater, Pam Nash, and Mary Gulbrandsen.

Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 12:57:58 -0600
To: wkeys@madison.k12.wi.us
From: "Laurie A. Frost"
Subject: West HS English 9 data request
Cc: arainwater@madison.k12.wi.us,pnash@madison.k12.wi.us,mgulbrandsen@madison.k12.wi.us

Bill --

First, thanks so much for responding and getting involved in this urgent matter.

Second, we have Bruce's report!

In fact, the following paragraphs from my email request to Shwaw contain verbatim quotes (in bold) from Bruce's report:

When you read the report, you will discover that English 9 -- which has been in place at West for several years -- has not done much to close the gap in achievement in English among West students. Thus the report recommends that "ongoing critical reflection and analysis of both the 9th and 10th grade English courses [is] needed [in order to] address ... concerns [such as] the failure rate for 9th grade English and which students are failing [because] it is not clear if a common 9th grade course has helped close the achievement gap" (underline added).

The report also states that "in addition, an action research group might be formed to evaluate the 9th grade course, including levels of expectations and differentiation, failure rates by student groups, and the extent to which it has helped or hindered students to take challenging English courses in subsequent years. Apparently, it hasn't helped some groups of students that much (underline added). Why? What needs to be changed so it does, and so the 10th grade course does, as well?"

Speaking as a well-trained social scientist with that whole other career behind me, I guess I see two ways to interpret these statements. One is that the West administration has looked at the data for English 9 and it does not show any effect on the achievement gap -- i.e., there is no effect on either the failure rate of certain groups of students (presumably in English 9) or the participation rate of certain groups of students in the more rigorous English electives. The other way to interpret the statements is that it's not clear if English 9 has had an impact on the achievement gap (i.e., those two specific indicators) because they have not yet looked at the data.

Now, Art says his understanding is that Bruce has no data. In all honesty, that possibility hadn't occurred to me. Wow. If that's true, I am even more appalled and outraged than I was before.

Bill (and all those I've copied), please try to understand, this is the kind of professionally irresponsible decision-making behavior that parents across the District are so enormously frustrated with. Think about it. A radical school-wide change is being implemented at one of our high schools -- one that will affect thousands of students -- despite an absence of data supportive of the change, that absence apparently due to the fact that the appropriate and necessary data have not even been collected and examined! I see that as a serious violation of the trust we parents have put in all of you, the decision-makers of our school district.

Please, I implore you once again, put a stop to this English 10 business and figure out what's going on with English 9 first!

Laurie

Here are the unchanged verbatim quotes from Bruce's report:

from page 4 ---

"Ongoing critical reflection and analysis of both the 9th and 10th grade English courses are needed. This analysis should address different but interrelated concerns:

1) The failure rate for 9th grade English, and which students are failing. It is not clear if a common 9th grade course has helped close the achievement gap."

From page 6 --

"In addition, an action research group might be formed to evaluate the 9th grade course, including levels of expectations and differentiation, failure rates by student groups, and the extent to which it has helped or hindered students to take challenging English courses in subsequent years. Apparently it hasn't helped some groups of students that much. Why? What needs to be changed so it does and so the 10th grade course does as well? " p. 6

At 07:46 AM 11/30/2005, you wrote:
Laurie,
This is what I intended to send: Art's response, in bold and italics.
Bill
Mary G, Pam and I met with Bruce King today. Bruce was very clear with us that his report did not say that the ninth grade English class had failed. What he actually said in the report was there was no data to make any kind of judgement about the success of the course. They would need to talk to Bruce about what data he has. My understanding was that he has none.
Art

At 07:24 AM 11/30/2005 -0600, you wrote:
Bill -- I don't think you sent what you intended to send. This looks like my own message only. Thanks for sending Art's response again. --Laurie

P.S. We have Bruce's report. Do you mean contact him for the actual data?

At 10:38 PM 11/29/2005, you wrote:
Laurie,
Here is Supt Rainwater's response to your request for information. I encourage you to contact Bruce King for the report.
Bill

Dear Shwaw, Bill and Ruth --
>
>We are wondering about the status of our 11/21 request that the
>Performance and Achievement Committee obtain the West HS English 9 data
>that goes along with the comments in the text of Bruce King's report
>regarding the course's failure to impact the student achievement gap at
>West; make the data public; and hold a Performance and Achievement
>Committee meeting to discuss it?
>
>The update from our end is that we have not heard from Pam Nash since our
>11/18 meeting with her; we still have not heard from Ed Holmes about the
>answers to those questions we posed to him before the 11/7 PTSO meeting,
>but that were not answered at the meeting; SLC Evaluator Bruce King held
>two parent focus groups tonight; there is a 20-minute English Department
>meeting on Wednesday to discuss which English electives will be
>discontinued; and we understand English Department Chair Keesia Hyzer is
>working on an English 10 course catalog description.
>
>Please, time is of the essence. Please get back to us. Please get those
>data. And please slow down the process that is unfolding at West, even as
>I write this email.
>
>
>Laurie
>
>
>P.S. I heard about yet another West family looking to move further west
>today.

12/2/2005: I write an email to Madison Board of Education President Carol Carstensen that the Board discuss plans for English 10 at West HS (and the question of whether or not West's English 9 course has been appropriately evaluated, and whether or not the results of any evaluation support the implementation of English 10) on the agenda of a BOE meeting as soon as possible.

Date: Fri, 02 Dec 2005 08:32:36 -0600
To: ccarstensen@madison.k12.wi.us
From: "Laurie A. Frost"
Subject: West English
Cc: wkeys@madison.k12.wi.us,lkobza@boardmanlawfirm.com,robarts@execpc.com,jwinstonjr@madison.k12.wi.us,jlopez@madison.k12.wi.us,svang7@madison.k12.wi.us,arainwater@madison.k12.wi.us,pnash@madison.k12.wi.us,mgulbrandsen@madison.k12.wi.us

Dear Carol,

I am writing to request that you put a discussion of the plans for English 10 at West HS (and the question of whether or not West's English 9 course has been appropriately evaluated, and whether or not the results of any evaluation support the implementation of English 10) on the agenda of a BOE meeting as soon as possible.

I believe it is time for the BOE to step in and take seriously its responsibility to students by insisting that the West administration make a sound, empirically-based decision.

Many thanks,
Laurie

Posted by Laurie Frost at 10:13 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Primary Reading Set for Overhaul

BBC:

The government has accepted a review which backs the greater use of a method called synthetic phonics.

Children are taught the sounds of letters and combinations of letters before they move onto books rather than reading simple books from the start.

Critics say the approach could stop pupils from getting a love of reading.

The review was carried out by Jim Rose, a former director of inspections at England's schools' inspectorate, Ofsted.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 06:40 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Letter to Performance and Achievement Committee

The following letter was hand delivered to Shwaw Vang a week ago, and email copies were sent to the Board, Superintendent Rainwater, and Assistant Superintendent Pam Nash. There so far has been no response. A follow up email was sent yesterday to the Performance and Achievement Committee again asking that they look into why the English 9 curriculum has not worked in raising student achievement before allowing West High School to implement changes in the 10th grade English curriculum.

Dear Shwaw,

We are writing to you in your capacity as Chair of the BOE Performance and Achievement Committee to ask that you address a critical situation currently unfolding at West High School.

Enclosed you will find a copy of a report entitled "Evaluation of the SLC Project at West High School," written by SLC Evaluator Bruce King and dated November 2, 2005. The report focuses on the West administration's plans to overhaul 10th grade English.

For many years West sophomores -- like West juniors and seniors -- have chosen their English courses from an impressive list of electives that range in content and difficulty level. According to the report, the overarching reason for changing the existing system for 10th grade English is the concern that the elective structure contributes to unequal educational opportunities across different student groups. Specifically, there is concern that some groups of students do not sign up for the more rigorous, higher level electives. There is also concern that some West students complete their English credits without taking any literature courses. In essence, the proposal makes 10th grade English a lot like English 9 -- a standardized curriculum delivered in heterogeneous classes. The thing is, English 9 has not had the desired effect on these indicators of student achievement.

When you read the report, you will discover that English 9 -- which has been in place at West for several years -- has not done much to close the gap in achievement in English among West students. Thus the report recommends that "ongoing critical reflection and analysis of both the 9th and 10th grade English courses [is] needed [in order to] address ... concerns [such as] the failure rate for 9th grade English and which students are failing [because] it is not clear if a common 9th grade course has helped close the achievement gap" (emphasis added).

The report also states that "in addition, an action research group might be formed to evaluate the 9th grade course, including levels of expectations and differentiation, failure rates by student groups, and the extent to which it has helped or hindered students to take challenging English courses in subsequent years. Apparently, it hasn't helped some groups of students that much (emphasis added). Why? What needs to be changed so it does, and so the 10th grade course does, as well?"

In a word, we find it unconscionable to think that the West administration would expand a program into the 10th grade that has so clearly failed to achieve its objectives in the 9th grade. We can't help but suspect that a look at the hard data would convince any reasonable person that the appropriate and responsible course of action, at this juncture, would be to figure out why English 9 hasn't worked and fix it before making any changes to the 10th grade curriculum.

As Chair of the Performance and Achievement Committee, would you please take responsibility for obtaining from the MMSD Research and Evaluation Department the 9th grade data that goes along with the above statements from the report? Would you also please make these data public and schedule a public discussion of them at a Performance and Achievement Committee meeting?

We must stress to you the time urgency of this matter. At the November 7 West PTSO meeting -- when the West administration and English Department first introduced the proposal for English 10 -- it was mentioned that the West course catalogue is due at the printer in December. This leaves very little time for the public discussion that should have been an essential element of this curriculum change process. Consequently, we ask that you please obtain the data and hold a public discussion of them immediately.

Many thanks for your prompt attention to this urgent matter.

Respectfully,

Laurie Frost, Jeff Henriques, Larry Winkler, Jim Zellmer, Joan Knoebel, Michael Cullenward, Ed Blume, Kathy Riddiough, Jane Doughty, Janet Mertz, Stephanie Stetson, Nancy Zellmer, Jan Edwards, and Don Severson

Link to the SLC report: http://www.schoolinfosystem.org/archives/2005/11/evaluation_of_t.php

Posted by Jeff Henriques at 08:22 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Evaluation of the SLC Project at West High School

Here is the full text of SLC Evaluator Bruce King's recent report on the plan to implement a common English 10 course at West HS.

Evaluation of the SLC Project at West High School
The 10th Grade English Course

M.Bruce King, Project Evaluator
608-263-4769, mbking1@wisc.edu

2 November 2005

The development and implementation of the common 10th grade English course is a significant initiative for two related reasons. First, the course is central to providing instruction in the core content areas within each of the four small learning communities in grade 10, as outlined in the SLC grant proposal. And second, the course represents a major change from the elective course system for 10th graders that has been in existence at West for many years. Given the importance of this effort, we want to understand what members of the English Department thought of the work to date.

Seven** English Department faculty members participated in individual interviews on October 17 and 24, 2005. Each of them was asked to discuss the following general issues:

1. The process for developing the 10th grade course and your involvement in that process.
2. Your perspective on the strengths and weaknesses of the course.
3. Extent of support for the course at any of these levels -- you, English Department, West faculty, administration, students, parents.
4. Other related issues or concerns.

The remainder of this report will address these teachers' views on the context and process for the course's development, the quality of the course, and suggestions for next steps. I will concentrate on dominant trends, that is, viewpoints and perspectives that were voiced by at least some of the teachers. Others may have disagreed or simply not commented on these dominant trends, but for the sake of (hopefully) being concise and maintaining confidentiality, my purpose does not include documenting each teacher's beliefs on all the issues discussed. I'll conclude with a few recommendations based on teachers' perspectives as well as my understanding of goals of the grant and related literature.

The Context for Course Development

Based on the interviews, it is clear that something needed to be done with the existing system for 10th grade English. The overarching concern for these teachers was that the elective course structure, while extremely positive in many respects, was a contributing factor to vastly unequal educational opportunities across different student groups. Certain elective courses were considered rigorous, challenging, and geared only for high achievers while others were thought to be remedial, uninspiring, and for low achievers. Student self-selection, as well as students being placed in or "encouraged" to take certain courses, has led to de facto ability-group tracking in English. The fact that high and low achieving student groups correspond to different racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds was very significant for many of these teachers.

Why is this situation a problem? Most teachers echoed concerns arising from research (1) on tracking in diverse, comprehensive high schools. There is high variation across the different courses in expectations for learning, teaching quality, school climate, and course-taking patterns. Students of color and low SES students are more likely than their peers to be enrolled in courses with low levels of opportunity for academic success. Teachers were concerned that after 9th grade, some students could and did complete English credits without taking a literature course. Additional concerns with the existing system that were voiced by some of the teachers included the increased workload for preparation and grading that came along with teaching different courses, and the current writing courses that consisted of curriculum divorced from other important English content. It was noted that these concerns were sources of some ongoing discussion and conflict within the department.

The whole issue of a common 10th grade English course seems to have heightened the level of divisiveness within the department. Teachers reported that the department was split, with many wanting to revise the elective system and others pressing for the single common 10th grade course. The decision to go with the common course was an administrative one, which was seen as a positive move by a number of teachers interviewed. That is, they appreciated the principal taking a stand on a significant curriculum issue, especially one that had been contentious within the department itself and that would likely be among parent groups.

After the decision was made, many of those who were previously in favor of revising the elective system were willing to go with the common course and, to the extent possible, contributed to the development of the course over the summer. However, some of those initially in favor of the course opted out of its development due in part to the hostility they perceived from those in different camps. Thus, who was involved in the course development and who was not has now become another point of tension. At the process level, some have felt personally attacked and others frustrated that their views were not being considered or by the lack of support from departmental colleagues.

A working group formulated the curriculum for the course over a few days in August. Many of those involved reported that this was a valuable experience, with critical and respectful professional dialogue that constructively dealt with areas of disagreement. Teachers' perspectives on the quality of the course that was designed by the group in August is considered next.

Course Quality

While acknowledging that the new 10th grade English course will not be a cure-all, the vast majority of teachers believed that its design represents a relatively strong course that will likely benefit all students. Aspects of the course that teachers highlighted included:

---"Best of the best" of the elective courses. The course will provide a solid year of literature that will serve as a common foundation for further (elective) course work in English. The readings and themes should appeal to students of different ability levels and different backgrounds. Writing will be emphasized throughout the year and be tied directly to themes and literature.

--- Choice. Many teachers believed that one of the strongest components of the elective system was student choice. 10th grade English will maintain some choice with classes selecting the theme of "justice" or "identity" for study.

--- Mixed groups of students. All students will get a common challenging curriculum that some students, under the elective system, would otherwise miss. Differences in opportunity to learn will thereby be reduced. Teachers understood that equality in education does not require that all students have the same learning experiences and endorsed the next two points.

--- Honors component. Any student can opt for additional readings and assignments to achieve honors designation. These students will meet twice per week during lunch. Some teachers felt that high-end students will feel extremely challenged.

--- Help for struggling students. Opportunities for skill enrichment and for accommodations or adaptations in materials or assignments will be available twice per week during lunch. Teachers were optimistic that two years of a solid foundation in English at the 9th and 10th grade levels will encourage these students to take more challenging electives as 11th and 12th graders.

--- Year-long course. Continuity between students and teachers will help both social relationships and academic achievement.

A number of concerns with the course were also expressed. The main ones included the following:

--- Differentiation. Common courses with heterogeneously grouped students require considerable knowledge and skill on the teachers' part to provide appropriate learning experience to students. Teachers will need support to do this.

--- Regrouping. Some were concerned that the lunch hour components for honors and struggling students would group students by ability, something the course was supposed to end. A related concern was whether these opportunities would shift the responsibility away from teachers to appropriately differentiate within the classroom, leading to actual implementation of a one-size-fits-all course.

--- Choice of themes. As with the elective system, choice can lead to unequal opportunities to learn. The different themes must be taught in a rigorous manner so they are not associated with different levels of challenge or considered appropriate for certain groups of students.

--- Coherence and goals of the course. Most teachers endorsed the themes and works of literature that will be included in the course. However, questions were raised about the overall purposes and learning goals of the course.

Next Steps

As teachers reflected on the process for course development, the quality of the course, and level of support for it, they either stated directly or strongly implied a desire for particular efforts in the near term. I'll summarize here their shared points of view for next steps.

Collegiality within the English Department needs to improve. The divisiveness over the course itself and the personal nature of some confrontations should be addressed. Some teachers were hopeful and some were doubtful that relations can be rebuilt or improved.

Ongoing critical reflection and analysis of both the 9th and 10th grade English courses are needed. This analysis should address different but interrelated concerns:

1) The failure rate for 9th grade English, and which students are failing. It is not clear if a common 9th grade course has helped close the achievement gap.

2) Continuous improvement and revision of course curriculum. This activity not only addresses topics and readings (e.g., how much Shakespeare? are non-white authors sufficiently represented?), but also should consider what the "enduring" understandings, skills, and themes are that are targeted for student learning and how to get there. It was noted that the typical conversations around curriculum rarely get to these issues; they are abstract and philosophical or at the level of content coverage.

3) Monitoring the lunch hour components. Is the increased class time for students realistic? Are resources sufficient? Do the resource teachers have the skills to accommodate different students? How can we make sure the honors component does not become a mechanism to re-segregate students by ability?

Teachers of the 9th grade course and teachers of the 10th grade course need more time for collaboration to address issues of instructional quality. Specific concerns that were expressed included approaches to differentiation, increasing the challenges for critical thinking and writing, and how to best teach writing and what expectations for writing should be.

Recommendations

Based on the teachers perspectives, the goals of the grant, and the related literature, I offer a few reflections and suggestions for both near-term and longer term efforts. I'll first address the issue of relations within the department.

One of the major fault lines within the department seems to be between those who are most concerned with academic rigor and those who are most concerned with the students who are struggling. There is common ground here that might be pursued further. The literature on SLC's and school reform draws attention to the connection between excellence through rigorous learning experiences for all students and equity. Successful small learning communities have students actively investigate topics and produce authentic demonstrations of their knowledge through exhibitions or performances. Learning experiences require students to acquire and critically analyze information; develop, test, and defend conclusions; and demonstrate in-depth understanding. Research shows that when students are involved in this kind of intellectually challenging work, student effort and engagement is increased, and classroom practice is linked to improved and more equitable student achievement (2).

These considerations push the substantive focus of discussions beyond curriculum and into approaches to instruction and learning expectations. At the process level, in order to rebuild collegiality and cultivate common ground, some definitive norms for meetings, such as setting and sticking to agendas and no personal attacks, need to be established.

In high schools where the vast majority of students achieve academically, there are organizational patterns that promote community and sustained, collaborative activities that promote learning across student groups (3). Rather than a department-wide focus, perhaps a more modest but accessible goal in the near-term would be to concentrate on smaller groups of grade-level teams and interdisciplinary Core teams for the development of professional communities. To further collective responsibility, all department teachers should probably be on one of these teams (4).

The department's work on the 10th grade English course is to be commended. Teachers recognized that the unequal learning opportunities that the existing elective system created across different student groups had to be addressed. As was noted, the 10th grade course will not be a cure-all or a magic bullet, and teachers were spot-on in terms of the ongoing analysis that needs to take place. Could the elective system have been revised to address the problem of unequal learning opportunities? Perhaps. Increasing options for juniors and seniors seems reasonable, and as interviews suggested, the common English courses will hopefully encourage all students to take more challenging electives as 11th and 12th graders. But excellence and equity is enhanced by high levels of academic press (or expectations) through a narrow (as opposed to broad, comprehensive) curriculum (5). A common, heterogeneously grouped course is consistent with the implementation of Small Learning Communities.

The course developers have rightly emphasized differentiated assignments, but the extent to which this will consistently be put into practice remains to be seen. A red flag was, I think, appropriately raised about re-grouping of students by ability (consider how special education students might be encouraged, and assignments adapted, to achieve honors designation; will they?). I'll also point out that students will be regrouped across SLC's, rather than structuring these efforts by SLC where students are supposed to be better connected and their learning needs better understood. Hopefully, implementation will be consistent with the relevant literature for SLC's, "The necessity of school level detracking does not rule out the practice of grouping within SLC on an ad hoc and fluid basis (6)."

How can high quality implementation be promoted? Teachers' workloads should also be balanced. In addition, an action research group might be formed to evaluate the 9th grade course, including levels of expectations and differentiation, failure rates by student groups, and the extent to which it has helped or hindered students to take challenging English courses in subsequent years. Apparently it hasn't helped some groups of students that much. Why? What needs to be changed so it does and so the 10th grade course does as well?

Common time to meet, as separate 9th and 10th grade English teams, seems to be critical for generating collaboration on and collective responsibility on their respective courses. Professional development and other forms of support for differentiation should be available to address identified needs. Facilitation for constructive professional dialogue focused on the issues teachers raised above (learning goals and expectations, enduring understandings, teaching writing, etc.) is crucial. Integrating these discussions with the work of grade-level Core teams may help to foster and support SLC's interdisciplinary efforts, including perhaps a thematic or problem-based approach that is integrated across different subject areas (7). And if this looks somewhat different across SLC's, that can be positive as long as high academic expectations for all students are maintained (8).

Clearly, the work around the 10th grade English course has been extremely difficult, with both personal and collective trade-offs, in addition to utterly hurtful confrontations. And there is more to do. But, to the extent the interviewed teachers are representative of the department as a whole, there is a spirit and desire to collaboratively confront issues of curriculum, teaching, and learning -- as well as equity and excellence -- in a professional, respectful way. To move toward building professional community among teachers can only be beneficial for further implementation of the small learning communities.

________________________________________________
** the West English Department currently has 17 faculty members

1 -- Murphy, J., et al. (2001). The productive high school: Creating personalized academic communities. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

2 - Oxley, D. (2004). Small learning communities: Implementing and deepening practice. Portland, OR: Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. Also Resnick, L.B., et al. (2003). The principles of learning: Study tools for educators. Pittsburgh, PA: Institute for Learning. The Principles of Learning emphasize an effort-based system instead of intelligence or ability-based system. "An effort-based school replaces the assumption that aptitude determines what and how much students learn with the assumption that sustained and directed effort can yield high achievement for all students. Everything is organized to evoke and support this effort, to send the message that effort is expected and that tough problems yield to sustained work. High minimum standards are set and assessments are geared to the standards. All students are taught a rigorous curriculum, matched to the standards, along with as much time and expert instruction as they need to meet or exceed expectations."

3 -- Murphy et al.

4 -- To the extent that any individual teachers teach only elective classes, they are not part of collaborative efforts focused on specific courses for diverse students.

5 -- Lee, V. E. (with Smith, J. B.) (2001). Restructuring high school for equity and excellence: What works. New York: Teachers College Press.

6 - Oxley, p. 72

7 - Research related to SLC's suggests that teacher collaboration can "expand teachers' knowledge of student learning needs and the means to increase the consistency of students' educational experiences," and that "academic department goals must support SLC's interdisciplinary teamwork." Oxley, p. 61, 69

8 - Small learning community research and practice indicate that SLC's with a unique focus or mission can be productive, Success then depends on choice and a shared commitment to the mission. See Oxley

Posted by Jeff Henriques at 10:41 PM | Comments (13) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

A different student viewpoint of West High

This was forwarded to the West High listserve with the request that it be posted as part of the current discussion about changes at West High.

When I read the anonymous email from a current West freshman who is defined as "talented and gifted," I could not help but feel that I should write about my own personal experiences. I am in the exact same position as the previous writer (a current freshman at West High, defined as "talented and gifted."), but I have completely opposite views. My time at West so far has been quite enjoyable. While some of the core freshman classes are indeed rather simple, I do not feel that my assignments are "busy work." While most classes may be easy, they still teach worthwhile information.

In my geometry class, for example, I am getting very high grades and do not always find the work completely challenging, it is important to learn the theorems and practice them before I can move on to a more difficult class. To get a more stimulating math experience, I worked it out with my guidance counselor to take an elective programming class, which is not intended fo r freshman, and that class stretches my mathematical limits. I am both learning the necessary theorems for math, and broadening my horizons. My english class I have also found enjoyable and plenty satisfying for a freshman class. I feel that it is necessary to point out that there is more than one freshman english teacher, and the anonymous freshman writer may very well have a far more mediocre teacher than I do. If that person is not finding their english class challenging enough, perhaps they could meet with their guidance counselor to switch teachers. The english curriculum in my class I have found to be quite interesting. As I will be a sophomore next year, I was rather concerned with the prospect of a core english curriculum and, I will admit, was not at all excited when I discovered that it would being going through. However, when I took the time to read through the details of this class, I was quite pleased. I am very excited with the literature that will be assi gned in this class, and I feel that this new curriculum may very well be more rigorous than any previous sophomore options. In addition, there are nearly a dozen elective english classes that sophomores will have the chance to take. Such classes should satisfy any sophomore's love for literature. There is also the option to take the extra english honor's classes. Yes, I am aware that these will be during lunch twice a week, but I feel that this is satisfactory. If a student wishes to continue to discuss their love for a piece of work they are reading, they most certainly can continue a discussion with the other honors students after the teacher has left. As a student, I feel that if I am truly dedicated, I ought to be willing to sacrifice any other club that would be going on at that time for the honors class. In the real world, choices need to be made, and they cannot be adjusted to suit a small group of people, no matter how "gifted and talented" they are. I also feel that the core english class is necessary to "shake things up." If the school created one separate class for gifted and talented students to test into, then this would defeat the purpose of having diverse classes (which is important, as West High is a very diverse school). I feel that if there were a separate honors english class to take in place of the core class, then this class would separate students - it would be a huge step back toward segregation in a progressive city. I believe that having a diverse classroom can be one of the most enjoyable and enriching experiences for any student. As for the new english curriculum, well, the combination of extra honors classes and elective english classes seem plenty to give even the most literature-loving sophomore a wonderful english experience. There is also one more thing that I would like to point out. Simply because a student is not "talented and gifted" does not mean that a student lo ves literature any less than any "talented and gifted" student. The opposite is implied when I read and hear "talented and gifted" parents rallying for a more rigorous sophomore english class. As a student, I believe that Mr. Holmes is doing a superior job in turning West High into an academically excellent school, and I am extremely pleased with the changes he has made so far as principal. I would like to thank all of the members of this group for taking my views into account and I am hope that they have given you a different perspective on the current changes being made at West High.

Posted by Jeff Henriques at 08:01 PM | Comments (4) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

West High School Presentation on 10th Grade English: Same Curriculum for All Students

Click to view the Video MP3 audio only Barb Schrank, Videographer

Principal Ed Holmes, English department chair Keesia Hyzer, and teacher Mark Nepper presented information on the planned single English curriculum for all 10th graders at West this past Monday evening. Watch the video or listen to the audio by clicking on the links just to the left of this text. Background on this matter: Laurie Frost: Questions about the proposed curriculum A History of Changes at West Get Involved at West NOW. Curriculum Changes Proposed at West AP Courses Taught at the Four Madison Public High Schools Families Leaving West? Curriculum and the Superintendent's Evaluation Jeff Henriques: Report from the meeting West 9th Grader: West's Core Program: Enrichment or Deprivation? Barb Schrank on the proposed curriculum Bruce King's evaluation of the West High School Small Learning Community English 9 Experiment - obtained by Laurie Frost

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 05:28 PM | Comments (2) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Questions About West's Proposed One 10th Grade English Class

Below is the list of questions about 10th grade English that were sent to West Principal Ed Holmes, West English Chair Keesia Hyzer, and Assistant Superintendent Pam Nash (who will be attending the meeting).  We explained -- again -- that our goals in sending them questions before the meeting are to give them time to prepare answers, minimize "surprises" at the meeting, and insure that all of our questions are answered.  They are aware that we are posting the questions to this list serve and that many parents in attendance next Monday night will know that these questions have been asked of them.  We have asked Mr. Holmes to consider publishing our questions and the school's answers to them in the next issue of the Regent Reporter (much as Mr. Rathert did with my questions about the SLC initiative a year-and-a-half ago), in order that parents who are not able to attend the meeting next week can nevertheless be fully informed.  We also included a few questions about the research on ability grouping and the SLC initiative, more generally, but made it clear that we did not necessarily expect them to be addressed next week.

We hope to see a lot of you at the meeting (7:00 p.m. in the West LMC).  Feel free to bring along any additional questions you feel we have overlooked.

Questions about 10th grade English at West HS

1. What are the West HS data that indicate there is a problem with the current system for 10th grade English?
   
   
2. What are the data that suggest the solution being proposed (i.e., a standardized, homogeneous curriculum delivered in completely heterogeneous classes) will fix the problem?  (Are there empirical studies you can tell us about?)
   
   
3. What are the data that indicate all students' educational needs will be well served by the proposed solution?  (Again, are there empirical studies you can tell us about?)
   
   
4. What are the data that indicate no students will be harmed or poorly served by the proposed solution?  (And again -- any empirical studies?)
   
   
5. If the 10th grade English core is implemented, will some English electives be dropped from the list of course offerings?  If so, which ones?
   
   
6. Will advanced students be allowed to "test out" or be "teacher-recommended out" of the 10th grade English core?  If so, when would this happen?  (When they register for their 10th grade classes?  At the end of 9th grade?  At the beginning of 10th grade? In between semesters in 10th grade?  Some or all of these times?)
   
   
7. Will you extend this option to advanced 9th graders and allow them to "test out" or be "teacher-recommended out" of 9th grade English?  (It is our understanding that this used to be allowed.)
   
   
8. Would you consider keeping the current system in place  and adding the new curriculum as an additional elective for those students for whom it is a good educational match?
   
   
9. Will the grant be jeopardized or lost if you do not implement a homogeneous 10th grade English core?  (If you are not sure, would you be willing to check into it and get back to us?)
   
   
10. We fear that the plan to offer an honors designation in 10th grade English that requires two lunchtime meetings per week is likely doomed to failure for the following reasons: a) it seems highly unlikely that students who have just endured a year of required "freshman resource time" during their lunch hour will be willing to give up two-fifths of their hard-earned midday freedom as sophomores; b) the plan puts having an honors distinction (which is really not the point -- having an appropriately challenging curriculum and the opportunity to learn with similar-ability peers is the point) in direct competition with participation in clubs and other activities that meet during lunchtime; c) the plan forces students to choose between more academics and social time or "down" time.  Because so many reasons for students not to choose the honors option are being built into the plan, we feel the plan is likely to fail and that you will then use that as justification for discontinuing the option due to "lack of interest."  Would you please comment on our concerns?  What are your thoughts about the potential success or failure of the proposed honors designation, as it is currently defined?
    
    
11. Who conceived of the proposal to restructure sophomore English by eliminating electives and implementing a standardized curriculum to be delivered in heterogeneous classrooms (i.e., what are their names, please)?
    
    
12. Were District TAG staff included or consulted in the development of this proposal?
    
    
13. Who is developing the 10th grade English core curriculum (again, what are their names, please)?
    
    
14. Were District TAG staff included or consulted in the development of the new curriculum?
    
    
15. What is the process the group is using to develop the English 10 core curriculum?
    Posted by Laurie Frost at 11:04 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

One English Program for West's Sophomores

Matt Pommer:

Under the new program targeted for fall 2006, all sophomores will take the same English program in the first semester focusing on the American Dream. In the second semester, students will be able to select from the themes of justice or identity, according to Keesia Hyzer, chair of the school's English department.

In the past, 10th-grade students have had more than 20 options, but 85 percent have selected among five or six choices, she indicated. Current plans call for the curriculum to be taught next year in 18 sections.

Principal Ed Holmes said the core curriculum "will meet the needs of the struggling learner as well as those of our gifted and talented students." He indicated that there is concern among some parents, but he urged them to see what the core curriculum will mean to their students. The core curriculum is still "a work in progress," he said, but it will be explained at Monday's PTO meeting.

"The parents' concern is that we are going to give up the rigor and challenge for our most talented students. By no means!" he said in a Capital Times interview.

• A History of Changes at West
• Get Involved at West NOW.
• Curriculum Changes Proposed at West
• AP Courses Taught at the Four Madison Public High Schools
• Families Leaving West?
• Curriculum and the Superintendent's Evaluation

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 10:09 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Language Learning Through Podcasts

Alex Williams:

It's evident that podcasting is changing how educators view how they teach. Language learning services are picking up on the trend and in the process, showing the first examples of podcasting as a premium service.

I ran across an article in Asia Times Online about ALC Press Inc., a company in Japan that is teaching conversational english to students by using podcatching services. The cost comes to about $86 per year.

In ALC's new service, the student will pay a monthly study fee. The student will also purchase a study book that includes the necessary software for "podcatching", the process used to download new podcast feed files.

Here's how it works.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 11:07 PM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

A History of Changes at West

Last spring a longtime parent at West HS was asked to write a description -- content area by content area -- of the curriculum changes that have occurred at West HS in recent years that have affected the academic opportunities of West's "high end" students. Below you will find what she wrote. It includes changes that have actually occurred; changes that may and probably will occur; and important questions about what else may happen in the future.

This summary was then forwarded to two other longtime West parents for their comments. Excerpts from those comments may be found just after the original description. Next, the description of each content area was sent to the appropriate department head at West, for their comment with the goal being to produce a brief, descriptive document that everyone would agree was factually accurate, for educational and advocacy purposes. Unfortunately, none of the department heads responded.

Here is the original description:

1. English

a. A few students gifted in English used to be permitted to begin taking upper-level English courses beginning 2nd semester of 9th grade, based upon their English teacher's recommendation, outstanding performance during their 1st semester at West, and the availability of open slots in appropriate courses that fit the student's schedule. (Note: this option involves no monetary cost.)

b. The two sections of integrated 9th-grade English/Social Studies were eliminated as of the 2003-2004 academic year. The primary purpose of these experimental courses -- very similar in philosophy to the SLCs -- was to provide an opportunity for one English and one social studies teacher to pair together to partially integrate their curricula and get to know the same group of students, along with the students having the same set of classmates for both classes. "TAG" students were among the ones who self-selected into these courses, creating cluster grouping within mainstreamed classrooms.

c. 10th-grade English core curriculum will likely be introduced in 2006-2007. This change will prevent highly motivated and capable students from having the opportunity to take appropriately challenging courses in English until 11th grade (currently, students get to start choosing from among the English electives in 10th grade). Ultimately, the effect will be a reduction in the number and variety of upper-level English courses West is able to offer.

2. Social Studies

a. 9th-grade Integrated English/Social Studies course was eliminated (see above).

b. The British version of 10th-grade European History was eliminated as an option a couple of years ago when the teacher of this course officially retired. (Note: this teacher still teaches some sections of 10th-grade European History at West.) As with Integrated English/Social Studies, "TAG" students were among the ones who self-selected into this variant of 10th-grade social studies, creating high ability cluster grouping within a mainstreamed classroom.

c. West's Social Studies Department decided this year that underclassmen will no longer be permitted to take 12th-grade elective courses prior to 12th-grade, not even on a space-available basis that would involve no monetary cost. No other department has this restriction. Might they follow suit?

3. Science

a. 9th-grade Accelerated Biology is restricted to one section despite there being approximately four classrooms worth of students who desire each year to take on the extra challenge this class entails (i.e., over 100 students choose to take the optional test for admission into Accelerated Biology each year, some years, many more than that). Budget constraints will likely lead to the elimination of even this one section in the near future unless West is willing to assign all of the students in this class to the same SLC (or have one section per SLC).

b. Will the implementation of a 10th-grade Core include science as well? If so, will everyone take the same Chemistry course in 10th grade, eliminating the variety of science options currently available to 10th-grade students? (Note: at the March 2005 West PTSO meeting, West HS Science Department Chair Mike Lipp stated -- in response to a parent question -- that they would not eliminate the regular Chemistry class because the lack of math content/rigor in Chem Comm ("Chemistry in the Community") would leave West graduates unprepared for chemistry at the UW and other universities.)

4. Math

a. West used to have a course called "Precalculus." It covered Algebra 2/Trigonometry Accelerated and Algebra 3 Accelerated in one year. It was eliminated last year (2003-04). The math staff were needed, instead, for "Algebra I Extended." In addition, it was a controversial course, in that there was disagreement as to how many students could really handle and benefit from it. All of West's remaining "accelerated" math courses are really honors classes, that is, they are not accelerated in pace, as exists at many high schools of excellence in the US. (Important note: the "new" class that will be called "Precalculus" next year is simply Algebra 3 Accelerated with a new name, not the old Precalculus.)

b. With old Precalculus gone, will West now end up having too few students to justify continuing to offer Calculus II starting in 2006-2007? (Note: in order to take Calculus II in high school, a student must take geometry before 9th grade or take a year of math over a summer.) If so, West could end up the only MMSD high school not offering Calculus II.

c. In the future, will most students at West be mainstreamed into "Core Plus" starting in 9th grade? (Note: this would fit well with the plan to have an SLC-based core curriculum in 9th and 10th grade; that is, to have all students take Core Plus from the beginning would make possible a 9th and 10th grade core curriculum in math.) If so, will none of these students be able to take Calculus in high school?

Here are excerpts from the comments of Person #1:

The institutional history corresponds well with my experience and my children's experiences at West.

One other point that is not made is that it used to be easier to take an Independent Study course for credit if you were a high achieving student. ... Also, the school people will point to the option of going to UW as a way of providing for high end kids. [Although this works well for some], I think it is a bad option since the calendars [and daily schedules] do not in any way correspond with one another -- on a daily basis, the UW offers courses on a MW, TR, or MWF schedule, while West offers their courses on a MTWRF schedule. The transportation time and the differences in the class start times means that, essentially, taking a single course at UW makes a massive hole in a student's schedule.

Here are excerpts from the comments of Person #2:

As for science, 10th grade students either take Chemistry acclerated or Chem Com. In 11th grade, there are two physics offerings, Advanced Math Physics or General Physics. In 12th grade, the advanced topics courses in these two areas -- as well as in biology -- are fairly subjective, dependent on teacher interest. By contrast, Memorial students have AP Chem, Physics and Bio, as well as a 9th grade earth science class; additionally, the sequence is taught in the more accepted order, chem, physics and finally, biology. Many Memorial students graduate with 25-45 AP credits; very few West students take any other than calculus, foreign language and/or statistics--10-15 credits. This can make a huge difference in college, either for placement and/or early graduation with its attendant reduction in cost.

Fundamentally, the problem lies with the SLC program. Its primary purpose, despite the social rhetoric, is to homogenize the student body across all variables, including academics. Most of the features that made West a haven for TAG students are eliminated. Taking courses out of the normal sequence will be very difficult and the clustering of students, unless it happens de facto as the result of changes in the middle school curriculum, will disappear. It was this menu of options and flexibility that offset West's weak to non-existent AP program. I would also be very concerned whether a student will be able to participate in UW's Youth Options program; coordinating the university and high school schedules is difficult under the current arrangement with West's variety of courses and times. Youth Options has been a tremendous opportunity for gifted students to expand beyond the typical constraints of the high school curricula. (Note: the State now limits the number of college credits for which a District must pay to 18 per student. Also, the Youth Options Program may well face threat of extinction again in the near future.)

Posted by Jeff Henriques at 08:27 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Curriculum Changes Proposed at West High

As discussion continues over the lack of AP courses at West High School relative to the other three Madison high schools, West prepares to further reduce the course opportunities for students.

Many West parents wrote this past spring and summer to Principal Ed Holmes, Science Chair Mike Lipp, and District Science Coordinator Lisa Wachtel advocating for more not fewer sections of Accelerated Biology. Parents have also written to express concern about plans to homogenize the 10th grade English curriuculum, eliminating the options currently available to 10th graders, and requiring students to wait until 11th grade before they can take elective courses in English.

There had been no response to these concerns until a recent letter went out at the end of September from Principal Ed Holmes.

Dear Interested Parent:

As we continue to improve and expand our curricular program to meet the needs of a very diverse student population, I want to assure you that we are working with best practice models and some of the most informed professionals in the field to make sure we offer a quality academic program for your child. Our goal is to do our absolute best to provide a challenging rigorous curriculum that meets the needs of every student that we serve at West High School.

The following information represents the work that has been done over the summer and at the outset of the 2005/06 school year in the areas of science and English. The people involved in the work in biology have been Welda Simousek, Talented and Gifted Coordinator for MMSD, Lisa Wachtel MMSD science coordinator, Mike Lipp, West High, science Department Chairperson, and members of the West High biology teaching team. Work in the area of English has been done by Keesia Hyzer, West High English Department Chairperson, Ed Holmes, Principal, West High School and members of the West High English teaching team.

Science

• There was over 25 hours of district-supported science professional development this summer focusing on quality instruction and differentiation at the high school level. Members of the West biology staff participated in this professional development opportunity along with high school science teachers from all the other MMSD high schools.
  

• There are eight professional development days scheduled during the 05-06 academic year to continue the work begun over the summer and further develop the honors designation in science.
  

• While there has been initial work over the summer on the honors designation in science there remains a lot of work to be done by the West science staff
  

• We are keeping in mind the following critical components as we plan:
  
  
  • More work is not the goal. Qualitatively different work is what will be expected.
    
  • Not all of the work can be done inside of class. There will be homework assignments just as always, but again, the work expected will be qualitatively, not quantitatively different.
    
  • We are looking for ways to enable students working toward the honors designation to spend some time together as a group as well as to work with other groups of students.

English

Over the summer, members of the English Department worked to create an English 10 curriculum. We will continue to fine-tune this curriculum over the school year. During the summer of 2006, English 10 teachers will meet to plan and differentiate particular units. Criteria for an honors designation in English 10 as well as additional attention for struggling students are both specified in the curriculum.

• All students have the option to elect or drop the honors designation.

• Honors designation does not guarantee an A.

• One English teacher, as part of her allocation, will be assigned as Skills and Enrichment Coordinator. This teacher will meet with those students who have elected honors twice weekly during lunch to lead discussion of the enrichment literature. This person will also grade honors exams and papers.

• The Skills and Enrichment Coordinator will meet twice weekly during lunch with students needing additional help. Books on tape, as well as reading and writing assistance will be provided.

The English Department meets at least once monthly; professional development days will also be used to continue our work on planning English 10. We plan to present information regarding grade 10 English curriculum at the November 7 PTSO meeting. All parents are invited to come to hear about the work the English Department has been doing over the last few months. We will continue to keep parents involved in the process as we determine the future of curricular and academic programming at West.

Sincerely,
Ed Holmes
Principal

Posted by Jeff Henriques at 06:55 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

A Few Notes on the Superintendent's Evaluation & Curriculum

Several writers have mentioned the positive news that the Madison Board of Education has reviewed Superintendent Art Rainwater for the first time since 2002. I agree that it is a step in the right direction.

In my view, the first responsibility of the Board and Administration, including the Superintendent is curriculum: Is the Madison School District using the most effective methods to prepare our children for the future?

There seems to be some question about this:

• Language: The District has strongly embraced whole language (Troy Dassler notes in the comments that he has been trained in balanced literacy). I would certainly be interested in more comments on this (and other) point(s). [Ed Blume mentions that ""Balanced literacy" became the popular new term for whole language when whole language crumbled theoretically and scientifically."] UW Professor Mark Seidenberg provides background on whole language and raises many useful questions about it. Related: The District has invested heavily in Reading Recovery. Ed Blume summarized 8 years of District reading scores and notes that Madison 3rd graders rank below state wide average for children children in the advanced and proficient categories. (Madison spends about 30% more than the state average per student)
• Math: The District embraces Connected Math. UW Math Professor Dick Askey has raised a number of questions about this curriculum, not the least of which is whether our textbooks include all of the corrections. A quick look at the size of the Connected Math textbooks demonstrates that reading skills are critical to student achievement.
• Sherman Middle School's curriculum changes
• West High School's curriculum changes and families leaving
• "Same Service Budget Approach": I think the District's annual same service approach reflects a general stagnation.

Many organizations live on the fumes of their past. Is this the case with the Madison School District?

Superintendent Rainwater visited with the Capital Times on the day the Board released the report on the his evaluation. Matt Pommer briefly summarized the discussion and closes by mentioning that state budget controls prevent new programs from being developed. This statement reflects the "same service mantra". The District could certainly change expensive programs like Reading Recovery and invest in a different approach. The District could also strongly adopt virtual learning tools. Weyauwega-Fremont School Board President Steve Loehrke has spoken and written extensively on these questions. The District could also change the way in which it delivers information (there's a little movement on this).

Finally, Jason Shepherd's recent Isthmus article on the Superintendent's review process is well worth reading:

But the evaluation marks the first step toward charting Rainwater's leadership of the city's schools. Leaders of public institutions are best governed by public bodies that set forth clear expectations. The board's new goals for the superintendent in the coming year are due by Nov 1.

I think it's time for a serious Board curriculum discussion. Madison is fortunate to have some fabulous resources just down the street at a world class University. Let's work with them, before they move on.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 07:21 AM | Comments (2) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Seidenberg's Recent "Informal Talk on Reading Education"

University of Wisconsin Psychology Professor [Language and Cognitive Neuroscience Lab] Mark Seidenberg recently gave a lecture on reading education at the University Club:

Whole Language was a massive, uncontrolled experiment, with millions of children as unwitting subjects.

How it's done: Someone gets an idea

• Often a Guru. Many Gurus in reading instruction.
• Guru has brilliant insight about how children learn, how to teach reading - Their own personal theory
• The idea may be personally promoted by the guru, with direct appeals to teachers
• The idea is implemented on a vast scale, based on intuitions that it is good.

Posted by Ruth Robarts at 03:30 PM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

One Secret to Better Test Scores: Make State Reading Tests Easier

Michael Winerip:

So? "The state test was easier," she said. Ms. Rosenstein, who has been principal 13 years and began teaching in 1974, says the 2005 state English test was unusually easy and the 2004 test unusually hard. "I knew it the minute I opened the test booklets," she said.

The first reading excerpt in the 2004 test was 451 words. It was about a family traveling west on the Oregon Trail. There were six characters to keep track of (Levi, Austin, Pa, Mr. Morrison, Miss Amelia, Mr. Ezra Zikes). The story was written in 1850's western vernacular with phrases like "I reckon," "cut out the oxen from the herd," "check over the running gear" for the oxen, "set the stock to graze," "Pa's claim."

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 10:05 PM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Reading First Under Fire

Title1online:

By January of 2003, Kentucky reading officials were frustrated. They had just been denied federal Reading First funds for the third time, and state leaders worried that they might lose the opportunity to bring in an unprecedented $90 million for reading instruction in grades K-3 over six years. Like most states strapped by budget cuts, they could not afford to lose that money.

Months before, consultants to the federal program strongly suggested to state officials that Kentucky’s choice of assessment was a major sticking point in their pursuit of the grant. According to the officials, consultants pushed them to drop the assessment they were using, Pearson’s Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA), and choose the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS), which was quickly becoming the most widely used test under Reading First. But there was a problem: One of the consultants on the four-member team had a second job — as a trainer for DIBELS.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 11:34 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

More on the Evils of PowerPoint in Schools

Amy Hetzner:

Teachers say creating a PowerPoint presentation captivates students and gives them background using a technological tool common in business.

Critics say PowerPoint requires students to do little more than assemble outlines and is a poor replacement for age-old standards such as essays.

Edward Tufte, professor emeritus at Yale University, has been one of the most vocal opponents, such as in an opinion piece called "PowerPoint is Evil" carried in the September 2003 edition of Wired.

"Rather than learning to write a report using sentences, children are being taught how to formulate client pitches and infomercials," Tufte wrote.

With 10 to 20 words and a piece of clip art for each PowerPoint slide, with only three to six slides per presentation, that amounts to only 80 words for a week's work. "Students would be better off if the schools simply closed down on those days and everyone went to the Exploratorium or wrote an illustrated essay explaining something," he wrote.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 07:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

WPRI: Milwaukee Public Schools Find Success with Phonics-Based Teaching Technique

Sammis White, Ph.D (full report here: 250K PDF):

study of 23,000 third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade students in the Milwaukee Public Schools showed that “among low-income students tracked between third and fourth grades 2002-03 to 2003-04, those with five years of Direct Instruction (DI) increased their math scores by 6.6% whereas non-low-income students increased their scores by 4.7%. This difference is statistically significant and is evidence of substantial progress.” These results are reported in Education That Works In The Milwaukee Public Schools: The Benefits from Phonics and Direct Instruction, by Sammis White, Ph.D. The report was released today by the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 08:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Education Gains are Lost on High School Students

Alan Borsuk:

The message put forth by, among others, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings on Thursday, is that the data point to the urgency of the hot new issue in education: What can we do about high school?

The priority of the issue increased with the release of data on long-term, nationwide trends in performance by students in math and reading. The information is from the National Assessment of Education Progress, a Department of Education effort that calls itself "The Nation's Report Card." NAEP has been testing samples of students from across the United States since the 1970s.

The results show that among 9-year-olds, reading performance in 2004 was up a significant amount, compared with both 1999 and the oldest data available, from 1971. In fact, the overall score was the highest on record.

But among 17-year-olds, the average score in 2004 was exactly the same as in 1971, and the trend has been downward slightly since the early 1990s.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 06:03 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Britain Goes Back to the Future with Phonics

The Telegraph:

David Blunkett, the Education Secretary who introduced the Literacy Strategy, promised to resign in 2002 unless 80 per cent met the expected standard of English on leaving primary school. The target has never been met, but Mr Blunkett long ago moved on to higher things. Instead, it is the nation's children who have suffered: between 1998 and 2005, well over a million children have failed to achieve basic standards of literacy. A quarter of a million 11-year-olds are unable to read and write properly.

Yet, as Mr Burkhard and the CPS reported recently, if schools had been allowed to employ the phonics method, illiteracy at age 11 might have been eradicated altogether. Judging by tests in Clackmannanshire, where synthetic phonics have been taught since 1998, the method reduces the rate of reading failure to near zero. The evidence suggests that pupils taught using phonics are over three years ahead of their peers taught by other techniques.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 10:02 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Carol Carstensen on Isthmus' Recent Madison Schools Coverage

This article, by Madison School Board President Carol Carstensen, appeared in Isthmus' May 12, 2005 edition:

Over the last two years, Isthmus' articles on the Madison school district, especially its approach to teaching reading, have reminded me of a favorite quote from Adlai Stevenson: "These are the conclusions upon which I base my facts."

The Madison school district has gotten a great deal of negative coverage from Isthmus, despite the fact that the district has seen continued improvement in the numbers and percent of children achieving at the two highest levels on the state's third-grade reading test.

This improvement comes at the same time as the district is ensuring that more students are tested, while the students themselves represent an increasingly diverse community. That is, more students in poverty, more students of color and more students whose first language is not English.

Here are some of the facts that Isthmus has ignored:

• 4 Children learn, and learn to read, in many different ways.
  
  
• The district's Balanced Literacy program is not one method but an approach in which teachers are trained in different strategies to meet the needs of individual children. This is why small class size at the primary level is so critical.
  
  
• Many teachers throughout the district are trained in Direct Instruction, and they use it when it is appropriate for a specific student or group of students.
  
  
• Reading Recovery is meant for the bottom 20% of the grade level, for the children who lag the most in learning to read. Of all the first-grade children who received Reading Recovery in 2002 and were still in the district two years later to take the third-grade reading test, 89% tested at grade level (66% scored proficient or advanced).

These are more appropriate figures for judging the program's effectiveness than
the one Isthmus prefers to emphasize, the 53% who "successfully complete" the program.

I am puzzled by the Isthmus focus on Lapham/Marquette. Let me state up front that I think these two schools are excellent; my children went to Marquette, and my granddaughter went to Lapham and Marquette. The Lapham/Marquette staff is outstanding. However, there are also excellent staff in many of the district's other schools.

In looking for outstanding performance on the third-grade reading test, Isthmus has ignored Schenk and Mendota elementary schools. Both have high levels of poverty. Schenk is at 49% this year, Mendota is at 74%, while Lapham/Marquette is 36%. Both Schenk and Mendota use Balanced Literacy as the core of their literacy programs, and their students have done extraordinarily well on the third-grade reading test. Looking just at low-income students, 85% at Marquette, 91% at Schenk and 83% at Mendota scored in the proficient or advanced range.

It is important for the community to have good information about the successes and failures of the school district. Good reporting, however, should reflect an objective look at all the data, not just selective data that supports a particular.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 05:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Read 180 Success Story from Manitowoc

Reading award given for language lessons learned
Jefferson student catches up to class with Read 180 By Amy Weaver, Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter

MANITOWOC — It’s hard to imagine that less than two years ago, Guadalupe Dominguez couldn’t speak a word of English, let alone read it.

She started at Jefferson Elementary School as a fourth-grader, but her reading ability was nowhere near her grade level. Last year, she felt as if she was reading like a first-grader or younger, but then Guadalupe found hope in a program called Read 180 as well as in herself.
Continue the story.

The MMSD uses Read 180 in some Madison schools, as reported in the WSJ.

Posted by Ed Blume at 10:03 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Pre Evaluation for Reading

To add to the discussion of successful/unsuccessful reading programs there is an interesting system in place in Anchorage, Alaska that has shown to be successful and seems very logical. Kindergarten students are screened thru testing in the Spring of each year with a system called the Slingerland pre-reading test. This test evaluates student's strengths and weaknesses in the auditory, visual, and kinesthetic modalities. Once strengths are identified they are placed in first grade, and some times second, based on the results. First/Second grade teachers are trained to emphasis either an auditory, visual, or kinesthetic curriculm and students with that strength are placed accordingly. Of course, some students show no strengths or weaknesses in a specific area and are placed in classrooms based on traditional means.
This is a wonderful, proactive way to target a childs natural learning style. It avoids waiting for a problem to develop before seeking this information. Slingerland was developed to work with Autistic children but has been adapted to a general classroom setting and is implemented in all the Anchorage elementary schools.

Posted by Mary Battaglia at 09:35 AM | Comments (0) Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Preventing Early Reading Failure

I came across an interesting review by Joseph K. Torgesen in the American Educator that is relevant to recent discussions on Reading Recovery and Direct Instruction. You can find the article online, but I will limit myself to quoting just a few lines from the paper.

"Instruction for at-risk children must be more explicit than for other children. ... Explicit instruction is instruction that does not leave anything to chance and does not make assumptions about skills and knowledge that children will acquire on their own. ... Evidence for this is found in a recent study of preventive instruction given to a group of highly at-risk children during kindergarten, first grade, and second grade (Torgesen, Wagner, Rashotte, Rose, et al., 1999). Of three interventions that were tested on children with phonological weaknesses, the most phonemically explicit one produced the strongest growth in word-reading ability. In fact, of the three interventions tested, only the most explicit intervention produced a reliable increase in the growth of word-reading ability over children who were not provided any special interventions.(emphasis added) Other studies (Brown and Felton, 1990; Hatcher, Hulme, and Ellis, 1994; Iversen and Tunmer, 1993) combine with this one to suggest that schools must be prepared to provide very explicit and systematic instruction in beginning word-reading skills to some of their students if they expect virtually all children to acquire word-reading skills at grade level by third grade.

Posted by Jeff Henriques at 10:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

MMSD's reply on Reading Recovery

In response to criticism of Reading Recovery here and on the Madison TAG Parents web site, MMSD Reading Recovery Coordinator, Sharon Gilpatrick, provided TAG staff with information in response to the letter about Reading Recovery and asked that it be shared with the community.

According to the Reading Recovery Council of North America the Internet letter criticizing Reading Recovery was not an "unbiased review of evidence. It represents a narrow but vocal minority opinion." They also state that it has a number of biases and omits important findings. You can draw your own conclusions by reading their letter signed by their group of international researchers.

Posted by Jeff Henriques at 11:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

California Bilingual Litmus Test

Susan Estrich - former Dukakis campaign manager and USC Professor takes California Democrats to task for pushing out one of their own over bilingual education:

But unlike much of Silicon Valley, he is a passionate Democrat, and his issue is public education. He has twice served as president of the State Board of Education. The idea that Democrats could reject him had me checking the local headlines this morning twice, to make sure that this wasn't some joke edition. Have these people lost their minds? This is the most talented guy on the team, not to mention that he's responsible for about $15 million to Democratic campaigns in the last couple of cycles.

Then I got it. Cut to the chase.

This isn't about qualifications or performance. So what if he killed himself for the last five years working on the Board of Education, running all over the state encouraging charter schools, using his own money when necessary to help provide start-up funds, while running a multimillion dollar business as his day job?

He failed the bilingual education litmus test.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 12:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Ruth Robarts Letter to the Isthmus editor on MMSD Reading Progress

Ruth Robarts wrote:

Thanks to Jason Shepard for highlighting comments of UW Psychology Professor Mark Seidenberg at the Dec. 13 Madison School Board meeting in his article, �Not all good news on reading�. Dr. Seidenberg asked important questions following the administration�s presentation on the reading program. One question was whether the district should measure the effectiveness of its reading program by the percentages of third-graders scoring at �proficient� or �advanced� on the Wisconsin Reading Comprehension Test (WRCT). He suggested that the scores may be improving because the tests �aren�t that rigorous�.

I have reflected on his comment and decided that he is correct.

Using success on the WRCT as our measurement of student achievement likely overstates the reading skills of our students. The WRCT---like the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examination (WKCE) given in major subject areas in fourth, eighth and tenth grades--- measures student performance against standards developed in Wisconsin. The more teaching in Wisconsin schools aims at success on the WRCT or WKCE, the more likely it is that student scores will improve. If the tests provide an accurate, objective assessment of reading skills, then rising percentages of students who score at the �proficient� and �advanced� levels would mean that more children are reaching desirable reading competence.

However, there are reasons to doubt that high percentages of students scoring at these levels on the WRCT mean that high percentages of students are very proficient readers. High scores on Wisconsin tests do not correlate with high scores on the more rigorous National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests.

In 2003, 80% of Wisconsin fourth graders scored �proficient� or �advanced� on the WCKE in reading. However, in the same year only 33% of Wisconsin fourth graders reached the �proficient� or �advanced� level in reading on the NAEP. Because the performance of Madison students on the WCKE reading tests mirrors the performance of students statewide, it is reasonable to conclude that many of Madison�s �proficient� and �advanced� readers would also score much lower on the NAEP. For more information about the gap between scores on the WKCE and the NAEP in reading and math, see EdWatch Online 2004 State Summary Reports at www.edtrust.org.

Next year the federal No Child Left Behind Act replaces the Wisconsin subject area tests with national tests. In view of this change and questions about the value of WRCT scores, it�s time for the Board of Education to review its benchmarks for progress on its goal of all third-graders reading at grade level by the end of third grade.

Ruth Robarts
Member, Madison Board of Education

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Barb Williams: Letter to the Isthmus Editor on 3rd Grade Reading Scores

Barb Williams wrote:

I'm glad Jason Shepard questions MMSD's public display of self-congratulation over third grade reading test scores. It isn't that MMSD ought not be proud of progress made as measured by fewer African American students testing at the basic and minimal levels. But there is still a sigificant gap between white students and students of color--a fact easily lost in the headlines. Balanced Literacy, the district's preferred approach to reading instruction, works well for most kids. Yet there are kids who would do a lot better in a program that emphasizes explicit phonics instruction, like the one offered at Lapham and in some special education classrooms. Kids (arguably too many) are referred to special education because they have not learned to read with balanced literacy and are not lucky enough to land in the extraordinarily expensive Reading Recovery program that serves a very small number of students in one-on-on instruction. (I have witnessed Reading Recovery teachers reject children from their program because they would not receive the necessary support from home.)

Though the scripted lessons typical of most direct instruction programs are offensive to many teachers (and is one reason given that the district rejected the Reading First grant) the irony is that an elementary science program (Foss) that the district is now pushing is also scripted as is Reading Recovery and Everyday Math, all elementary curricula blessed by the district.

I wonder if we might close the achievement gap further if teachers in the district were encouraged to use an approach to reading that emphasizes explicit and systematic phonics instruction for those kids who need it. Maybe we'd have fewer kids in special education and more children of color scoring in the proficient and advanced levels of the third grade reading test.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 12:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

NYC - Balanced Literacy and Reading First Grant - $111 million. Why Wasn't MMSD Successful?

Why didn't MMSD qualify for Reading First dollars? NYC was awarded a Reading First grant of $111.4 million over three years for 49 public and 35 non-public schools. NYC offers Balanced Literacy to its school children. Madison offers Balanced Literacy. Why wasn't the Reading First program able to become part of Madison's Balanced Literacy?

Part of the reason may lie in the NYC approach to seeking the grant money. NYC formed a committee of teaching professionals, union representatives, experts and parents to review the grant requirements and to determine what program would work with their comprehensive approach to literacy.

NYC succeeded in being able to incorporate Reading First, which is dollars targeted to literacy for low income children. Madison citizens need to know more about what process MMSD used and more specifics about what were the barriers to MMSD receiving Reading First dollars?

Letter Describing NYC Process for Seeking Reading First Grant Money

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Art Rainwater's Email regarding Reading First

Madison Schools Superintendent Art Rainwater sent me an email today regarding this paper. Here's his email:

Dear Jim

I received a copy of your email to Diane Mayerfeld regarding reading in the Madison Schools. I would like to set straight the misinformation that is contained in the document that you included with your email. First the Milwaukee Public Schools have not performed better on the fourth grade WKCE test that Madison. The report cites "School Facts 03" as the source. The numbers in that publication show that in Madison 80% of our fourth graders scored proficient and advanced on the test and that only 63% of Milwaukee"s fourth graders scored proficient and advanced. I am not sure how such an error could have occurred in the document that you produced since the numbers in the report are very clear. An examination of the DPI WINNS website shows the same numbers.

I find this type of inaccuracy extremely disturbing since inaccurate numbers were also used in the Wisconsin State Journal editorial regarding the Reading First grant. The editorial states that Lincoln's third grade reading scores have declined since 2001, when in fact, they have steadily increased. The editorial writer had the chart showing the increase in performance before her when she wrote the editorial.

There are always legitimate disagreements that can be made over many of the decisions that the District makes. However, using inaccurate and clearly wrong data to make those arguments should never be acceptable.

The Performance Series Report also indicates that there was a choice between Reading Recovery and the programs approved under the Reading First grant for funding. That assertion is not accurate. Reading Recovery was not part of the issue at all. The choice was between our Balanced Literacy Core Program (CLIP) and the Reading first programs. Reading Recovery is a first grade intervention not a core program. The following explanation written by the team that actually worked on the Reading First grant and have extraordinary expertise in reading says it much better than I can.

Letter to the Editor December 2, 2004 While we strongly believe that the editorial staff of the Wisconsin State Journal has every right to take a position critical of the Madison school district, it is vitally important for the editorial staff to get the facts right so that readers can accurately make their own judgments. Unfortunately, the WSJ's editorial, "Reading between the lines of rigidity" fails the test. The editorial contends that, "third grade reading test scores have actually declined since 2001 at Lincoln (Elementary)." Not true. In fact, Midvale/Lincoln students have improved in that period. In 2001, 52.7% of Midvale/Lincoln third graders were "proficient" and "advanced" while in 2004 66.9% of the students were proficient or advanced, according to the Department of Public Instruction's Web site. This is a 14.2% increase, not the decline stated in the editorial. In fact, since the inception of the district current classroom reading program during the 1997-98 school year, all of the schools that participated in the Reading First grant have improved: Glendale - from 34.5% to 67.3%; Hawthorne - from 31.1% to 71.2%; Midvale/Lincoln - from 44.8% to 66.9%; and Orchard Ridge - from 69.3% to 82.6%. The Reading First grant would have required a complete change in the district's classroom reading program. It called for us to dismantle this program which has enabled us to make substantial gains towards eliminating the minority student achievement gap on the third grade reading test (see WSJ article, Saturday, Nov. 20) and then to purchase and implement a program that has no documented record of success. The editorial confuses the reader by comparing "apples to airplanes" when it implies that the choice for the district was between one of Reading First approved programs and the Reading Recovery program. Reading Recovery has nothing to do with Reading First, aside from the fact that both have "reading" in the titles. Reading Recovery is an individual intervention program used only with first grade students who need additional instruction outside of the classroom reading program. In contrast, Reading First approved programs are used as the fundamental classroom reading program for all students. The editorial says the district should have accepted a grant that would have thrown out our successful classroom reading program at five of our schools, "while simultaneously getting the federal evaluators to take a good, hard look (at the district's current program)." While we didn't throw out our program, we did spend the first year of the grant working with the guidelines and getting the federal evaluators to take a "good, hard look" at our program. We made modifications and improvements and there was give and take, but the bottom line for the U.S. Dept. of Education was to do things their way, or no way. We chose to continue our successful classroom reading program. We are deeply committed to ensuring that every child in Madison schools can read at or above grade level. It is one of the Board of Education's goals for the district. We believe it can be done and our data shows it is being done. We work towards that end every day. Disagreement on substance is expected, but please don't muddle the truth to the extent that your readers aren't getting an accurate picture. Sincerely, Jane Belmore, Assistant Superintendent for Elementary Instruction Beth Lehman, Principal, Lincoln School Andreal Davis, teacher, Lincoln School Carol Heibel, Principal, Glendale School Penny Johnson, teacher, Glendale School Michael Hertting, Principal, Orchard Ridge School Barb Dorn, teacher, Orchard Ridge School John Burkholder, Principal, Midvale School Mary Kay Johnson, teacher, Midvale School Cathy McMillan, Principal, Hawthorne School Jaci McDaniels, teacher, Hawthorne School Diane Esser, District Literacy Support Teacher

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WSJ Opinion: Reading between the lines of rigidity

The WSJ Editorial page published a very useful editorial this morning on the Madison School District's rejection of $2M in federal Reading First funds for reading improvement programs:

Taxpayers have the right to ask why the Madison School District would turn its back on a $2 million grant.

OUR OPINION
Reading between the lines of rigidity

Given that its own evaluator says the Madison School District�s Reading Recovery program is not working as well as was hoped, it seems clear the district acted too quickly in turning down a possible $2 million federal grant for reading instruction.

Earlier this fall, superintendent Art Rainwater informed the Madison School Board that the district was ending its participation in the federal "Reading First" program after one year. Rainwater said federal evaluators refused to accept the district�s homegrown reading program, called the Comprehensive Literacy Instruction Program (CLIP), and insisted the district switch to one of many federally approved reading programs.

Rainwater noted that the $2 million federal grant would not have translated directly into a $2 million savings in local taxes because the federal money had to be devoted to materials and staffing specific to "Reading First."

He said that the tightly scripted phonics-based "commercial" programs approved by "ReadingFirst" would hamstring teachers� ability to use different methods with different children. He also contended that none of the federally approved programs are backed by data demonstrating success. In contrast, under CLIP 80 percent of Madison third graders were reading at the proficient level or better, so, Rainwater claimed, there was no need to change.

But what about the other 20 percent? How can one of the nation's finest school systems accept sub-par outcomes by a fifth of its students?

Just five out of 30 elementary schools qualifed for participation in "Reading First" - Glendale, Hawthorne, Lincoln, Midvale and Orchard Ridge. All have substantial minority and low income populations and all are below the 80 percent proficient ideal.

Despite Rainwater's contention that students continue to improve using CLIP, third grade reading scores have actually declined since 2001 at Lincoln, where (as at Glendale) fewer than 70% of students are proficient or better.

Meanwhile, a district analysis of Reading Recovery an intensive, expensive program aimed at helping the worst first grade readers improve asked whether the program is really worth the money. Reading Recovery, which costs about $8,400 per graduate, does not yield statistically significant achievement gains when participating students� performance is compared to nonparticipating students. This analysis echoes the findings of reading re searchers throughout the country, who advised Congress and the federal Department of Education that Reading Recovery should not be included among the federally approved Reading First programs.

If Reading Recovery isn�t helping the 20 to 30 percent of Madison school children who struggle with reading, it�s the district�s responsibility to find a program that can. Maybe the answer is in one of the approved "Reading First" curricula - but we�ll never know, because of the district�s decision to pull out of the program.

That was a mistake. The district should have taken the money and tried a new approach at the five qualified schools, while simultaneously getting the federal evaluators to take a good hard look at CLIP. It is possible that CLIP could get a federal OK - but again we'll never know because the district pulled out of the process.

School Board Member Ruth Robarts was right: A decision this important should have been made by the board, not the administration. Taxpayers have every right to ask why the district would turn its back on a reading program funded by a $2 million grant.

WSJ Editorial Page

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Sara Tarver: Myths About DI and Research that Refutes Those Myths

Sara Tarver forwarded this 10 point piece on MYTHS ABOUT DIRECT INSTRUCTION And RESEARCH THAT REFUTES THOSE MYTHS

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 09:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Norm and Dolores Mishelow Presentation on Milwaukee's Successful Reading Program

Norm and Dolores Mishelow gave an informative presentation Sunday on their successful Milwaukee Barton School and 27th Street school reading programs. Background

3.7MB MP3 - ideal for your MP3 Player/iPod | Quicktime Video

Transcripts to Follow. DVD copy is also available - email me if you'd like one: zellmer at mailbag dot com

In a related matter, Madison School Board Member Carol Carstensen writes in the Wisconsin State Journal in support of the District's recent rejection of $2m in Federal Reading First money (click below).

Carol Carstensen: Why Madison schools rejected federal grant
2:04 pm 11/02/04
Carol Carstensen

Discussions about approaches to teaching reading seem to generate a lot of heat and not much light.

The Madison School District s approach to reading meets the criteria (80 percent proficient readers) established by the federal government's Reading First initiative. However, the district was told by the federal government evaluator, Kathy Howe, that if we wanted to continue to receive Reading First money, we would have to adopt a program where teachers were given scripted daily lesson plans that would not allow for teacher judgment about instruction.

The district's approach to reading has been developed over several years in consultation with UW-Madison and national reading experts. It is not, however, one of the commercially produced programs that the Bush administration demands as a condition of continuing the funding.

The requirement that we adopt a scripted program is in direct conflict with the national research that shows students learn best with highly trained teachers making sound judgments about the content, sequence and pacing of instruction for individual students.

As a result of the district's approach, we have seen steady growth in the percentage of third-graders who score at the proficient and advanced levels and the growth has been especially significant for low-income children of color.

Howe admits that she cannot provide data indicating the same level of success if the district adopted one of the Bush administration's approved programs. In fact, a recent study by UW-Milwaukee professor Randall Ryder found that the scripted programs were less effective than programs that encouraged a more flexible approach. That finding is supported by Madison's own data.

For the last six years, one of the school board's priorities has been to have all third- graders read at grade level. We are close to achieving that goal. The progress we have made could not have occurred without highly trained, effective teachers.

Our success is also due to the hundreds of community volunteers who have been trained by the Schools of Hope initiative to work with children on reading. Madison has good reason to be proud that the cooperation between the schools and the community has worked to help so many children become successful readers.

Carstensen is a Madison School Board member. Here's a link to the original WSJ page (they will 404 (page not found) this link in the near future)

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Literacy & Economic Growth

Statistics Canada & The Economist:

TO WHAT extent is economic growth driven by the acquisition of �human capital�? Many economists have pursued the answer over the past 20 years, but without great success. Despite building and rebuilding elaborate growth models, they have failed to prove that better education and training significantly raises a country's long-term growth. Recently, though, a Canadian team made a breakthrough. It found that, if you measure actual skills rather than educational qualifications, human capital becomes a strong predictor of economic growth.

The team identified a clear and significant association between investments in human capital in each period and a country's subsequent growth and labour productivity. Specifically, a rise of 1% in literacy scores relative to the international average is associated with an eventual 2.5% relative rise in labour productivity and a 1.5% rise in GDP per head.

These are much clearer effects than those found in previous studies. In the three countries in the study where human capital improved the fastest between the older and the younger generations (Belgium, Finland and Italy), growth in output per worker rose much faster than average between 1960 and 1995, while in those with least improvement in skills (New Zealand, Sweden and the United States), growth was slower.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at 09:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Immersion better for kids than bilingual classes, study says

Louie Villalobos summarizes a recent study by the Arizona Department of Education:

The Arizona results showed students in immersion classes outperformed bilingual education students in every grade level between second and eighth grade in reading, language and math, based on Stanford 9 scores.

There starts to be a significant difference at the sixth-grade level, at which immersion students were more than one year ahead of the bilingual students in math.

By the eighth grade, there was at least a one-year difference in all three subjects.

"There is not a single exception," Horne said. "It tells us that the students in English immersion do substantially better."

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Wordcount - Tracking the way we use language

Fascinating site: http://www.wordcount.org

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The Importance of Phonics

Relevant to the sucess of students at Marquette Elementary School, U.W. Psychologist Mark Seidenberg has a new paper in Psychological Review that shows that phonics is critical for skilled reading. Seidenberg's research "suggests that teaching young children the relationships between spellings and sounds - or phonics - not only makes learning to read easier, but also allows the flourishing of other skills that lead to faster, better reading." "If you have a teaching method that discourages learning the connections among spelling, sound and meaning, you make the task of learning to read much harder for the child," says Seidenberg. "You also leave out an important component of what ultimately makes us skilled readers." You can read a press release here.

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3rd Grade Reading Scores Released

Wisconsin DPI just released statewide third grade reading test results:

• DPI Superintendant Elizabeth Burmaster's comments: (6 page pdf)
• Sarah Carr: Still, at the state level, educators need to work on closing a persistent achievement gap between students of different races and socioeconomic classes, said Joe Donovan, state Department of Public Instruction spokesman. This year, 64% of African-American and 65% of Hispanic students scored in the top two categories, compared with 90% of white students.

  Lindsey added that too many MPS schools - 18 to be exact - have fewer than half of the students reading at proficient or advanced levels.

• Lee Sensenbrenner: Marquette, a school for third- through fifth-grade students, partners with Lapham Elementary, which teaches phonics-based reading to its kindergarten through second-grade students.
• Lee Sensenbrenner writes:

  Notable within the district were the two elementary schools that led the county for the percentage of students reading at the advanced level:

  Shorewood Hills, drawing from affluent homes and graduate student housing on the near west side, topped the list with 70.1 percent of its students at the top level.

  Second was Marquette Elementary, a near east side school where more than 28 percent of the students come from low-income homes. There, 65.7 tested at the advanced level, while another 28.6 read at the proficient level.

  This approach, coupled with an individual remedial reading program called Direct Instruction, is somewhat different from the curriculum in other Madison elementary schools.

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New Black Hawk Principal

To learn more about Alan Harris, the new principal of Black Hawk Middle School, you might want to visit the site that has the "report card" for the school he's leaving.

It appears that 27% of the students scored advanced or proficient on English language arts in 2002-2003, compared to 50% for the district, and 35% for the state average.

Posted by Ed Blume at 02:51 PM | Comments (219) | TrackBack Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

88 Years to Close Achievement Gap!

Based on a recent front-page story in Isthmus and other data provided by MMSD, here are some conclusions about closing the achievement gap at the advanced level of the third grade reading tests.

1. Eight schools increased the percentage of African American kids scoring advanced between the 1997-1998 and 2002-2003 school years.
Nine schools showed a decrease.
Seven schools showed no change.

2. Twelve schools had no African-American students in the advanced category in the 1997-98 year.
Nine had no students in advanced in 2002-2003.
Five school had none in 1997-98 and 2002-03.

3. Between the 1997-98 school year and the 2002-2003 school year, the percentage of African-American students scoring advanced rose from 8.03% to 10.08% -- an increase of .4% per year.

4. At the current rate of increase, it will take almost 88 years to close the achievement gap at the advanced level! (In 2002-2003, 45% of the white students scored advanced. (45% - 10% = 35 divided by .4 = 88.)

Posted by Ed Blume at 09:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

Reading Instruction Workshop

2004 DIRECT INSTRUCTION TRAINING AND CONFERENCE
August 9-10, 2004
Edgewood College Campus
Madison, Wisconsin

• Direct Instruction Training for both Beginning and Advanced
• Sessions Specially Designed for Deaf/Hard of Hearing Teachers
• College Credit Available
• Great New Location

KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Sara Tarver, Ph.D., Professor, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Issues and Debates about Direct Instruction

FEATURED PRESENTER
Terry Dodds, Author of the new High-Performance Writing Program

OTHER PRESENTERS
Tonja Gallagher, M.S., Doctoral Student and Teaching Assistant, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Jane Jung , Ph.D., Second Grade Teacher, Lapham School, Madison,WI

Dolores Mishelow, former principal in Milwaukee, WI

Norm Mishelow, principal of Barton School in Milwaukee, U.S. Dept. of Ed. Blue Ribbon Award Winner

Beverly Trezek, Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, Madison

Chris Uelmen, M.S., Curriculum Coordinator, Core Knowledge Charter School, Verona, WI

CONFERENCE SESSIONS INFORMATION
The first day will begin with a keynote address by Dr. Sara Tarver. All participants will attend the keynote from 8:15-9:45. For the remainder of the first day and the entire second day, participants will attend one of five small group sessions (A, B, C, D or E). Participants who select �A� session, Reading Mastery I, for example, attend that session for two days. The �D� session is designed for participants with experience in Direct Instruction. Participants who select the �D� session should fill out the supplemental portion of the registration form. The �E� session, Train the Trainer, is designed for the experienced Direct Instruction teacher who wants to learn the skills needed to do large and small group DI training. Enrollment for �E� session is limited. Interested participants should fill out the supplemental application portion of the registration form and will be notified of acceptance by June 25, 2004.

Participants can register for 1 graduate credit. See registration form.

For more information

• Content of conference or conference registration, contact Peggy Peterson at toppetersen@msn.com
  
• Graduate credit or course registration, call Tonja Gallagher at 608-238-6738.

REGISTRATION INFORMATION
Full Two-Day Conference
Early Bird Discount � Save $25
Registration by May 14, 2004 $100
Registration after May 14, 2004 $125

REGISTRATION FORM
2004 DIRECT INSTRUCTION TRAINING & CONFERENCE
August 9-10, 2004

Name: Affiliation:

Street Address:

City, State, Zip:

Phone where you can be reached after July 1, 2004:
Email Address:

I wish to attend the 2004 DIRECT INSTRUCTION TRAINING & CONFERENCE.
I have enclosed a ___check____purchase order in the amount of $__________.
Please bill my _____VISA ______MASTERCARD
Card # ____________________________Exp. Date__

Signature_________________________
Circle your session choice

A B C (see * below) D (see ** below) E (see *** below)

*If you choose SESSION �C�, indicate the grades you are working with: _________________

**If you choose SESSION �D�, indicate your Direct Instruction experience.
Name(s) of program(s) taught: _________________________.Years of experience:__________

***If you choose SESSION �E�, complete the following.
Current education position:
Number of years experience teaching using DI Programs:
Please list the Direct Instruction programs and levels you have had experience teaching:

On a separate sheet of paper, please answer the following questions:

o Why are you interested in this session?
o How do you plan on using this training?
o Person to contact as a reference. Include Name, Phone #, Email Address:

How to Register by Mail
1. Complete the registration form.
2. Print out and enclose registration form with VISA/MASTERCARD information, check or institutional purchase order for the proper fee.
3. Mail completed form and fee to Peggy Petersen at: Peggy Petersen , 4802 West Wells Street, Apartment 4, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53208.

SOME FINE PRINT
Confirmation
No confirmations will be sent for Session A, B, C and D. Please arrive at the conference registration area between 7:30 and 8:30 on Monday, August 9.

Lodging
The closest lodging to Edgewood Campus is the Best Western Inntowner, 24224 University Ave. Call 608-233-8778 for reservations.

Parking
Parking is free.

Graduate credits
1 credit is available through Viterbo College at a cost of $80.00. Participants wishing to receive credit must attend the full 2 day conference. 1 hour of additional reading and lesson practice (from the session you attend) will also be required. There is no need to pre-register with Viterbo. When you arrive at the conference, a table will be set up where you can complete a short form and pay tuition. Tuition may be paid by cash or check (no credit cards/debit cards). Please arrive early on the first day of the conference. If you have questions regarding credit, you may contact Tonja Gallagher at tggallagher@charter.net

Special Needs
ADI-WI is committed to making our activities accessible to persons with disabilities or special needs. If you anticipate a need for service, please indicate your request on the registration form. In the space below, indicate nature of request no later than July 15, 2004.

Cancellations
In the event that the conference must be cancelled, ADI-WI will notify participants and send a full refund by July 15, 2004.

Posted by Ed Blume at 07:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas